Thaindian News

New Delhi, Sep 24 (IANS) With 12,900 prosecutions this year, the maximum in the last ten years, the Delhi Traffic Police are all geared up to crack the whip on the menace of drunken driving in the capital.

According to Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Satyendra Garg, among the numerous problems on Delhi’s roads, one of the worst has been drunken driving.

“Conceding that we cannot handle all the (traffic) problems because of inadequacy of law, infrastructure and our own shortcomings, we concentrated on limited issues which include drunken driving,” Garg posted on Delhi Traffic Police’s Facebook page.

According to Garg, 689 people were prosecuted in the year 2000, and the figure more than doubled to 1,545 in 2001. It further rose to 2,464 in 2002 and 2,793 in 2003.

There was a marginal drop in 2004 when the figure was 2,664 but it again went up to 3,551 in 2005 and to 4,286 in 2006.

A slight dip was witnessed again in 2007 with 4,192 cases but it again shot up and almost doubled in 2008 with 8,296 drunken driving cases. In 2009, there were 12,784 prosecutions and the figure was 11,388 last year.

“This year’s figure has been an all-time high with 12,900 in eight months and 20 days. I am sure this year’s figure would be massive,” posted Garg.

Further, 2,250 offenders have been imprisoned for drunken driving since August 2010 when police got the permission from courts to arrest a person for driving under the influence of alcohol.

“Imprisonments began in August 2010 and now there is a healthy trend of regular imprisonments being awarded,” said Garg.

He said driving licenses of 1,908 offenders have been suspended this year.

“We have intensified prosecution of drunken driving and instead of a weekly check, we have indulged in random checking around the city twice a week… Accidents in the city have come down in the last couple of years due to these efforts,” said Garg.