the goan I network
VASCO
After a long gap of several months, multiple challans of traffic violations seems to be haunting Vascokars yet again. Several residents have recently begun to receive traffic sentinel challans for traffic violations, especially on the F L Gomes road.
Angered on receiving multiple challans, residents have expressed concern and raised suspicion on the role of the traffic sentinel while demanding that the government led by Pramod Sawant spend more on improving the quality of roads instead of rewarding a traffic sentinel who they claim could earn as much as Rs 60,000 a month by clicking photos of traffic violations.
Instead, residents have requested the government invest in roads, employ more traffic personnel or install CCTV cameras instead of hiring traffic sentinels if at all the primary priority is to save lives.
It may be recalled that in the month of January, an angry mob of residents frustrated with the multiple challans they had received had attacked a traffic sentinel and even damaged his car from where he would click photos of traffic violators.
“Forcing us to wear helmets while riding potholes as big as the moon’s craters is a mockery of the basic purpose of having a sentinel to save the lives of motorists. Let the government invest money they use for rewarding the sentinel to improve the road conditions. Why should the government depend on ‘hidden agents’. The government can definitely employ more youth in the traffic police and we are willing to pay fine to a traffic police but the feeling of being shot unawares is most irritating,” said a resident Sameer Shaikh.
“The government must understand that capturing a photograph of a person without the person’s knowledge, especially women could amount to a crime. What if the photo of the woman is misused by the volunteer himself.
In the past there have been cases where people have received fines on the basis of their Facebook profile. The basic intention of the sentinel is to only make money at the cost of violators. Let the money go in the kitty of the traffic cell instead,” said another resident Raju
Lamani.
“Traffic sentinels use the scheme to settle scores. Paying of fines is not an issue but the feeling of receiving a challan after a few days on the basis of a photo taken by an unknown person is a disgusting feeling. The scheme should be denotified immediately,” said another resident John Fernandes.
