MARGAO
The South Goa district was accident-free during New Year revelries, with the district police as well as the traffic police booking as many as 192 cases of drunken driving.
SP Arvind Gawas, said the district did not witness any major untoward incident during the revelries.
Contrary to initial reports about the shortfall of tourists along Salcete’s coastal belt, the district police, who led the Goa police team since last night till the wee hours of Tuesday, said thousands of visitors, including domestic and foreign tourists, had descended along the Colva-Benaulim stretch of the beach belt last night.
DySP Traffic, Prabodh Shirwaikar, confirmed the huge presence of visitors along the beach belt as evident by the vehicular parking. He pointed out that around 2000 vehicles, including cars were parked at Colva and Benaulim beach belt since last night. Similarly, the Bogmalo beach belt had seen around 700 vehicles parked at the beach and around 500 vehicles parked at Canacona.
Of the 192 drunken driving cases booked by the Goa police, 99 cases were booked by the police stations across South Goa, while the traffic police booked around 93 such cases across the district.
Of the 93 cases booked by the traffic police, DySP Shirwaikar pointed out that Ponda town topped with the list of violators with 33 cases.
On the other hand, the district police chief said all the police stations in South Goa registered cases of drunken driving, with the least number of cases booked in the jurisdiction of Curchorem, Sanguem and Canacona police stations.
“Our effort in curbing drunken driving has paid off. While the police were on the roads to check drunken driving, it has helped to bring down the accident rate on New Year day to zero,” SP Gawas said, while stating there was no law and order situation reported from anywhere.
