As early as next year, Uttar Pradesh could be having a special team of about 1,100 policemen to patrol about 850 km of National Highways (NH) in the State.

“These policemen would be driving along the NH in specially designed and branded cars or in over 350 cc motorbikes, to catch highway offenders and take care of victims of highway accidents. The vehicles would be equipped with breathalysers, bikes, cars, car radio, among others,” Rajesh Rohatgi, Senior Transport Specialist, said at an Indian Roads Congress conference on road safety. Uttar Pradesh will also appoint professionals to design their uniforms.

About 60 per cent of road accident deaths happen on national and state highways.

“For this pool, we basically would be pooling in multi-skilled police officers, who apart from driving their vehicles, will proactively enforce traffic regulations, analyse highway accidents and provide relevant inputs, engage in social education of villagers along highways, also know basic emergency care. A major emphasis of the force will be in behavioral training so that they can be friendly but strict,” Anil Agrawal, ADG-Traffic, UP, told Business Line. The project will be rolled out in calendar 2015, said Agrawal.

The Uttar Pradesh police would be trained with the New Zealand police, said Rohatgi. And though there would be police posts located at every 40 km gap on the highways, the highway police will function through a command and control mode. Their job would primarily to be on the highway 24 hours through the day – through three shifts. Rohatgi estimates 70-80 per cent of their expenditure will be on fuel.

“The force will be pooled in from the current lot of staff, on a deputation of three years. The force will be function like a paper-less office system, through a central command centre. The services will also be demand driven where the policemen go to a spot based on the calls to traffic helpline. Our target was to set up this force in the most economical way,” said Agrawal.

“This is a pilot project. Depending on the success of the project, it can be scaled up to 6,000 km of NH and 9,000 km of state highways,” according to Agrawal.

PROECT FUNDING

The World Bank would fund the capacity building of the project, with the exception of the salaries.

“This would involve a project cost Rs 250 crore, with a 70 per cent loan by World Bank, spread over five-six years,” Rohatgi explained on the sidelines. This is a component of Uttar Pradesh core road development project, costing Rs 3,500 crore, which involves 70 per cent World Bank funding.

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