SSP unveils blueprint for smooth traffic flow

Kathmandu, June 25 :

Senior Superintendent of Police at the Valley Traffic Police Office (VTPO) Bhishma Prasai today opened a parcel of plans to facilitate smooth flow of traffic in the Valley. The plans include a plethora of bicycle patrols, traffic assistance hotline, SMS-the traffic control room facility, softer treatment of cabbies and an all-women cops’ traffic post in the heart of the capital.

Speaking at a programme organised here by the VTPO, he said the Valley Traffic would be part of the Metropolitan Police System if it is implemented. Prasai also said the traffic police would now have a three-digit hotline in their mini-control room so that people can inform them if traffic problems occur in the Valley.

“The hotline will help make the traffic controlling system effective,” he said, adding that the new system would be installed within three weeks.

The Traffic Police Office is mulling installing SMS system in the Valley Traffic System, in coordination with Nepal Telecom (NT). “NT will provide us a number (either two, three or four digits). If anybody sends a message to that number, the Valley Traffic Control Room will receive the message,” he said.

Prasai said the VTPO will intensify bicycle patrolling in the Valley. “We will deploy 23 bicycle-borne traffic police personnel. The colour of their bicycles will be white, with the logo ‘Valley Traffic Police’ so that people can easily notice the movement of traffic police,” he added.

“We intend to provide two bicycles and one motorcycle to every traffic police unit in the Valley. So far, we have been able to manage seven motorcycles,” he said. Prasai said the traffic police would ensure that taxi drivers keep their identity cards above the taxi’s dashboard so that passengers, if they leave behind their belongings inadvertently, can easily contact the cab driver.

“The ID-card system will be vigorously implemented,” he said, citing an instance when he himself lost a cell-phone in a cab due to non-implementation of the system. Prasai said he had directed all traffic police personnel to avoid seizing vehicles provided that there was no serious circumstance.