Soon, a school for highway traffic police in Pune

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Ranjani Raghavan

Posted online: Tuesday , July 15, 2008 at 12:20:23

Pune July 14 If the state traffic police had only two training institutes – at Byculla and Kherwadi in Mumbai to turn to churn out traffic cops, soon it will have a similar facility in Bavdhan, on the city outskirts to train its highway police as also impart advanced training to all traffic police in the state. The Pune training school assumes importance given the rise in the number of highways in the state and the need for specialised skills while managing traffic on highways and of course the expressways.

On Monday, top officers came to Pune to survey the one-acre land owned by the Highway Police here. The school is said to be in a nascent stage and that the course details were yet to be finalised. While a time-frame has not been set to complete the project, the blueprint for the institute will be drawn up by the architects from Police Housing Board.

“The highway police officials draws officers on deputation from other branches of the police force. All of them join the force via the IPS and study the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, but do not get any special training in highway traffic management, something this school would be able cater to,” said Rajesh Bansode, SP, Highway Police, Maharashtra.

According to Bansode, mugging, highway robberies, interception of vehicles, management of over loaded vehicles, emergency evacuation and trauma care were other factors the highway police needed to be alert to.

Presently, police officers are deputed to the Highway Police department for three years on a rotation basis.

A Highway Police team has already visited the city’s Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT) and the traffic institute in Byculla to look for possible guidelines in building the new school.

Up till now, the 1,500-strong highway police cadre was training with the Mumbai city traffic police, although managing traffic within city and the highways are totally different.

“The types of vehicles and offences on the highways are different. Within the city, the traffic has to be managed and channelised; whereas speed has to be managed on the highways. There is also a bit of highway maintenance work involved,” said Sarang Awad, SP, highway Police, Thane.

Meanwhile, the highway police on the e-way continue to operate without legal powers since January. They have to rely on the local traffic police or the RTO to book the offenders. In the past three years, the numbers of accidents on the state highways have remained steady at around 11,000 a year.

In 1989, the state government had withdrawn legal powers from the highway police on charges of corruption. However, when the Expressway was thrown open to the public in 2001, the highway police was granted legal powers on the E-way, subject to annual renewal. This January, the renewal did not come through.

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