Computers for all checkposts

Are you among those who are harassed by policemen while motoring to a neighbouring state? Take heart. All 10 checkposts on roads connecting Gujarat to Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra will be computerised by March 3l.

"Gujarat will be the first state not only in India but in the whole of Asia where all traffic exit and entry points are computerised by March 31," transport commissioner P. Pannirvel said. Work began in June 1999 under the Rs 18.58 crore Interstate Checkpost Automation Project.

Policemen will no longer be stationed at these points, only computer operators. Defaulters or others trying to flee will be checked by a barrier - and a tyre-shredder. As soon as a vehicle touches a barrier, steel shredders embedded below the road surface will rise and rip through all tyres at one go. ‘The shredder system is adapted from one designed at the Pentagon," said Pannirvell.

He also said that once computerised checkposts are in operation, the problem of truckers and other motorists being harassed, fleeced should come to an end.

The unique feature of the system which makes it totally "corruption-free" is the system of pre-paid cards. "Under this system, erring vehicle drivers will push their pre-paid cards in a computerised machine which deducted from his account," Pannirvell said "There will be no cash payment. We will make it mandatory for all transporters to keep pre-paid cards."

He said that the computerised checkposts would be linked with the Central Monitoring and Database Management System to be set up at the Sabarmati RTO office premises in Ahmedabad. "It is from there that my staff and I would monitor minute traffic operations from the problem of overloading to the number plates of vehicles, which will keep appearing on the computer screens," Pannirvell said. "The system would be so corruption free that our department’s toal income is expected to increase from Rs 500 crore per year to Rs 1,000 crore per year."

Under the project, video cameras, weighing bridges as also the underground steel shredder boxes - all imported from the Germany - will be installed.

Interestingly, the scheme has elicited guarded response from the transporters. "The idea sounds good if it is practically possible to implement the project," opined Akhil Gujarat Truck Transport Association (AGTTA) honorary secretary Nimish J Patel.

Said the AGTTA president Nandlal Thaper felt transporters will not at all be benefited by the scheme because our drivers are harassed by the highway police not by the policemen posted at the chekposts. "According to him, the scheme can only work until the state Government withdraws its Golden Token Scheme (GTS).

"Under the scheme, truckers are allowed to overload their trucks but a the same time they are also penalised for overloading," Thaper said adding, "Computerisation of chekposts will not help us in any way if the government keeps on penalising us for overloading."

Compiled from local news media