Evidently, the current traffic rules being tightened has had an immediate boost in the collection of fines, if not in getting people to follow traffic rules as yet.
Jagat Man Shrestha, Superintendent of Police (SP) at the Metropolitan Police Traffic Department (MPTD), says one of the most common reasons that cause blockades in the city is careless parking.[break]
“People park on footpaths and roads that create obstacles for both pedestrians and vehicle drivers. Because there’s no space, pedestrians wind up walking on the road and vehicles drive on pavements, increasing the chances of road accidents,” he says.
Footpath clearing, therefore, has been a major focus for traffic management, with 959 cases registered against the offence of footpath parking in the month of Poush alone.
There has been a substantial growth in the number of actions taken against several other traffic offences as well. The total number of cases registered was 1,607 in the month of Poush as compared to 232 in Mangsir, and a few hundreds in previous months. The total revenue for Poush added up to Rs 15,97,610.
The tightening, however, has not been a peaceful transition, with frequent tiffs between traffic police and public.
“People sometimes argue that there are no ‘No Parking’ signs on the road. It’s an obvious fact that roads or footpaths aren’t meant for parking. But often, people need to be reminded and then reprimanded for such traffic offences,” says Shrestha.
He says such steps have been taken to facilitate the general public, and he is proud to claim that the pavement clearing has shown positive results in many central areas in and around Kathmandu.
“The traffic in Kathmandu is very disorderly, and it’s necessary to take strict actions against traffic offenders,” he says.
According to some reports, the traffic police are forcing men with long hair to trim it. But SP Shrestha denies the allegations, saying that it is none of the traffic police’s concern.
“As traffic police, we make sure the helmet is standard and worn properly. Besides that, hair isn’t our concern,” he says.
Besides footpath clearing, the highest numbers of traffic cases registered have been for the offence of illegal parking, vehicle modification, adjusting taxi meters for overcharging, overload driving, driving without license, and arguing with the traffic police. The number of cases against drunk driving is limited to just two or three instances a month, the highest this year since the month of Shrawan being seven in Mangsir.
The number of cases of driving vehicles without number plates or even the ones with “On Test” stickers is also recorded as high as 270, along with the number of cases with vehicles without green stickers (for environment) recorded 559 in the month of Shrawan.
“The traffic offence fines collected for the past two months on the average has been of Rs 300,000 per day whereas it stood at some Rs 80,000 before,” says Shrestha.
However, the boost in revenue collection does not necessarily indicate that the number of offences has decreased, or the traffic police have suddenly gone hyperactive, according to Shrestha. It also indicates that “traffic offence cases weren’t prosecuted in a serious manner previously.”
The non-tax revenue collected from traffic offence cases goes to the Inland Revenues Department at the Ministry of Finance (MoF).
Last year’s budget speech had proposed “to raise the existing penalty by 25% and provision would be made to distribute the additional amount raised to the concerned traffic police as an incentive in order to motivate them to fully enforce the traffic rules.”
“The concept was to utilize the additional revenues collected from traffic cases for the traffic management purpose itself,” says Anil Gurung, head of the Transportation Department at the Ministry of Labor and Transport Management (MoLTM). “We had prepared a directive and submitted it to the MoF last year, but due to some legal loopholes with the additional non-tax revenue collection and technical problems, it wasn’t approved.”
However, Shanta Raj Subedi, Joint Secretary at MoF, says the revenue collected from transportation and other sectors are non-tax revenues, and the decision to raise or drop such penalties is made after a proposition by the Ministry concerned.
“The budget speech of the Fiscal Year 2009-2010 mentioned raise in traffic penalties. But following that, there was no clear proposition on how MoLTM would implement the different points about the collection and distribution of the additional revenue,” says Subedi. “Since then, there’s been no talk with the Ministry on the subject of taxation in traffic penalties.”
The Department of Transport Management (DoTM) has been among the highest tax revenue generators, according to Krishna Dawadi, Director General of DoTM. But the investment in traffic management is very low.
“The MoF allocates the budget and that’s how the revenue is utilized. The transportation management sector however doesn’t even get one percent of the budget,” says Dawadi.
Shrestha, however, states that the revenue collection is secondary and the primary concern is traffic management and regulation.
“It’s a long process lying with different Ministries asking for the revenue to be utilized in traffic management projects,” he says, “ So we have to take things in our own hands sometimes and take our own initiatives.”
The decision to demolish the sideway at Shahid Gate, which was also used as a pickup and drop point for passengers traveling in public transportation, was one of such initiatives.
Shrestha admits that the traffic police had no legal right or authorization to do that. However, the location was extremely accident-prone, and some action had to be taken against it.
“With people getting off in the middle of the road and trying to cross the busy street wasn’t just creating traffic congestions but caused many road accidents too,” he says.
According to Shrestha, one of the reasons traffic management in Kathmandu has been in chaos is due to political unrest and vandalism of road infrastructures during the numerous bandas and strikes.
“We’ve been working actively to get the traffic of Kathmandu under control. But another series of the banda can again take us back to square one,” he says.
Nonetheless, Shrestha is optimistic about the reduction of traffic problems in Kathmandu if people start obeying traffic rules, and concerned stakeholders like the Department of Road, Kathmandu Metropolitan Municipality and DoTM work together to resolve the situations.
Besides, political commitment is also indispensable, says Shrestha, as the trend of declaring strikes and bandas when a single driver or a pedestrian of a certain political party is prosecuted for a traffic offense, and it becomes an impediment to sustainable traffic management.
As this story goes to press, the traffic police have also decided to warn first-time offenders and fine repeated jaywalkers, especially those pedestrians who do not avail of the flyovers or sky bridges in the core areas of the capital city. This was the last resort after the traffic police’s PR campaign to gift oranges and such goodies to jaywalkers failed during the previous weeks.
However, what would be the results of the new rules and regulations should be seen only in the days to come.
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