Telangana Establishes Specialised Traffic, Road and Rail Safety Bureau
Dedicated highway patrol units will operate on national and state highways, expressways and the Outer Ring Road.
Hyderabad: In a move to address traffic congestion and road accidents across the state’s 32,000-km road network, the state government has ordered the creation of the Telangana Traffic Management, Road and Rail Safety Bureau (TG-TMARS).
It would be a unified mechanism for traffic management, road and rail safety.
The bureau will be headquartered here and headed by an officer of the rank of additional director general of police or inspector general of police as director.
TG-TMARS will function under the administrative control of the Director General of Police and under the State Road Safety Council that is chaired by the Chief Minister.
The state has more than 1.8 crore registered vehicles.
The new structure also follows Supreme Court directions on electronic monitoring and enforcement under the Motor Vehicles Act.
The bureau will have separate wings for traffic management and road and rail safety, according to a statement here on Thursday, The traffic wing will oversee urban traffic, signal networks, emergency traffic management and coordination with local bodies.
The road and rail safety wing will handle e-challans, crash investigations, highway patrols, data analysis of repeat offenders and rail safety.
Dedicated highway patrol units will operate on national and state highways, expressways and the Outer Ring Road.
Personnel will be equipped with automatic number plate recognition devices, dashboard cameras and speed detectors.
Every police station will designate a road crash response officer to secure accident sites, facilitate medical care during the golden hour and upload crash details on the electronic detailed accident report platform.
The government has also created a traffic management fund, with 40 per cent of traffic fine collections earmarked for technology, patrol vehicles, emergency road repairs and enforcement.
Publicity expenditure from the fund will be capped at 5 per cent, with spending on banners and hoardings prohibited.
Around 300 police personnel will be moved into TG-TMARS, while dedicated traffic posts will be created at commissionerate and district levels.