Idle hands spoil Salem police’s traffic rationing measure

Apr 12, 2020, 04.22 AM IST

Salem: Two days after introducing a system to limit the number of vehicles on roads, city police commissioner T Senthil Kumar on Saturday warned those who are hell-bent on scuttling it.

The city police had introduced a colour-coded system on Thursday to allow motorists venture out twice a week. Police personnel used yellow, red and green paints to mark the vehicles. Vehicles that have the yellow tag are allowed on roads on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Those having red tag can be taken out on Mondays and Fridays. Owners of vehicles that have the green tag can use roads on Sundays and Wednesdays. Vehicles that are not tagged can be taken out on Thursdays.

Police personnel had tagged as many as 30,000 vehicles for the initiative.

However, the cops soon found out that some vehicle owners were removing the colours assigned to them using thinner and painting them over so that they could take the vehicles out all days.

“We identified 110 vehicle owners who tried to cheat us and booked cases against them,” Kumar said. “We also seized the vehicles. The seized vehicles will be produced before the district courts and the owners can get them back only after paying a fine amount prescribed by the court. But it will be a long and tough process.”

Police had launched the system for the sake of the motorists amid fears of Covid-19 community spread, the commissioner said. “But some people are not bothered. They just want to roam around.”