Dilli Police launches beacon drive

Dilli Police will launch a drive from June 1 to fine and impound vehicles that are wrongly using red beacons on their cars. Only a few high ranking politicians and government officials are allowed to use red beacons.

During this period the police will also be promoting the use of beacons in the cars of people who are entitled to use the beacon but do not use it. According to the police only 50 percent of authorized red beacon users are regularly using their beacons.

The vehicles that are found to be using beacons illegally will be fined Rs. 50,000 and impounded. In an unusual way of punishing these offenders, the police will affix large decals on the cars that say, "I am not a VIP". These decals will use a special adhesive developed for this purpose by Febicol.

Mr. Sanjeev Chep, MD, Febicol said, "This special epoxy adhesive ensures that the decal cannot be removed without scratching the paint or breaking the glass."

To ensure that the legal beacon users regularly use the beacons, the police will hard-wire the beacons with the air-conditioners, de-foggers and audio systems of all the VIP cars authorized to use red beacons.

Mr. Rakesh Malik, ACP Traffic, said, "We think that hard-wiring beacons is the best way to increase their utilization".

Mr. PS Sarthi, president of VIP drivers union, has threatened to go on strike protesting against the hard-wiring. He said, "If we hard-wire the sirens and beacons with audio systems, it will not allow the drivers to listen to the radio while waiting. It will take away the only source of time-pass of drivers."

The police fined four such vehicles in a similar drive last year.

Broom shortage causes havoc

Various streets in Delhi have not been cleaned in the last few weeks due to a shortage of brooms with the Municipal Karporation of Dilli. The sanitation workers say that they have not received their quota of brooms for this year.

When contacted, Karporation executives have blamed the lack of planning on the part of the procurement commission in buying new automated broom-sets for more than 54,000 sanitation workers in the city.

The automated brooms have a rotary motion that allows the sanitation workers to clean the area allotted to them much faster. Each sanitation worker has to cover more than 60,000 sq. ft. of area every day.

When contacted, the procurement commission's chairman, Mr. Sabrok Singh said, "This is all because of the Commonwealth Games. We were sourcing the brooms from the same company that supplied cleaning equipment for Commonwealth Games but went out of business due to delayed payments."

The dilli municipality is now forced to source normal brooms at Rs. 600 a piece, double the original cost, from Thailand.

One of the safai karamcharis, Hari babu, said, "It has not only caused us a lot of work backlog, our plans of starting the Annual Quidditch Games has also gone for a toss."

Meanwhile, the karamchari union had to delay their protest march due to excessive stench of uncleared garbage near Jantar Mantar.