Kolkata: Forty mobile surveillance vans have been introduced to check overspeeding of vehicles on highways.
The vans are fitted with electronic display boards, using which awareness on traffic norm will be spread.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the state Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister Firhad Hakim and senior administrative and police officers flagged off 40 mobile surveillance vans in a programme outside the state Secretariat Nabanna.
The surveillance vans have also been fitted with cameras which are capable of capturing registration numbers of vehicles.
The vehicles will keep moving on major roads, mainly the highways and the cameras will be capturing registration numbers of overspeeding vehicles. Soon, details of the vehicles, along with the registration number, will be passed to the police personnel posted at the nearest checking points.
It will help in carrying out prosecutions for flouting traffic norms on the spot, explained a senior police officer.
It may be mentioned that the state government has already taken several steps to check road accidents. The Chief Minister had launched the statewide Safe Drive Save Life campaign that has helped to bring down the number of road accidents.
A few months ago, a major accident took place on National Highway 6, where a car was moving at a high speed.
It may be mentioned that watchtowers have been set up along highways and it has helped in maintaining vigil on the movement of vehicles. Besides setting up of watchtowers, road signs were also installed, which has helped in checking road accidents.
Now, the mobile surveillance vans will also help in checking overspeeding of vehicles. At the same time, awareness will also be spread among people using the display boards fitted on them.