RTO counts its money

The transport department has dished out very impressive figures in terms of the money that has been raked in. A whopping Rs 211.4 crore has been the contribution of all the RTOs put together to the State exchequer from April 1 to November 30 this year. Mapusa RTO was the highest contributor with Rs 23.5 crore while Margao with Rs 23.1 crore and Panaji with Rs 19.5 crore followed second and third respectively. Further to this, there were 4.69 lakh challans that have been issued during this period against 3.63 lakh challans raised for the year 2016.
What would these figures actually mean? Are we to believe that are RTOs are working overtime to crack down on traffic violations or is it that people on the roads have grown more reckless and careless? Apart from the fact that there have been a major jump in revenue compared to the previous financial year, the figures mean nothing if we are to correlate it to road accidents. The number of challans is not an appropriate criteria to measure the success on the road.
It is encouraging to see Transport Department come out with measures to curb violations. The Traffic Sentinel Scheme is one of such innovative decision where people have been asked to send in videos and photographs of traffic violations for the RTO to act upon. Till now there are 410 violations that have been reported and it would be interesting to see how many have been booked and how effective this sort of moral policing will be. The move to penalise non-transport vehicles operating as taxis is also a positive, but is in no way connected to the issue of road discipline.
A major part of the blame for the increasing road violations should rest with the RTO and traffic police themselves since they are primarily responsible for enforcing discipline, right from the moment RTO issues driving licences. It's time the transport department follows a pragmatic approach to traffic violations. Rather than counting the challans and the money, the focus should be on how effectively traffic has been disciplined. Identifying black spots or taking strategic positions to book violators is not going to change much. RTO and traffic police have to be constantly on the move through the traffic. This will force motorists to remain alert at all times.
Looking beyond the RTO, we need better roads. There are 12.68 lakh registered vehicles in Goa and the number is increasing by the day. Poor condition of roads makes the situation only worse for motorists. The fines and penalties need to be revised further. The standard of living is very high
in Goa and motorists are not feeling the pinch when they have to shell out paltry sums for traffic violations. Lastly, the attitude of the entire system should change. It's not about how much money the RTO manages to collect in a day. It's about how effective our policing is.