BANGALORE: The Bangalore Traffic Police will acquire more cranes and towing vehicles (called tigers) to tow away vehicles as instances of haphazard parking have gone up in the city after the withdrawal of the pay-and-park system by the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike from April 1.

The Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic-East), M. Abdullah Saleem, told The Hindu on Thursday that the number of cases booked for parking violations has gone up in April.

The police booked 22,625 cases for parking violations last month and collected a fine of Rs. 22.62 lakhs.

They also towed away 3,867 vehicles and collected Rs. 8 lakhs as towing charges.

Penalty

In all, they collected Rs. 46.78 lakhs as fine for parking violation and Rs. 17.52 lakhs as towing charges in the first four months of 2005, he said.

Now, the police are planning to acquire more heavy-duty cranes and towing vehicles to tow away the vehicles parked in violation of rules.

The city police have written to the modernisation wing of the Police Department to provide the cranes and towing vehicles, Mr. Saleem said.

The police now have 12 towing vehicles of which four are owned by private parties. The police pay 25 per cent of the towing charges to the private parties.

Earlier, there were 32 towing vehicles, most of them owned by individuals. The entire towing charges were paid to them.

Petition

After the Government decided to pay only 25 per cent of the towing charges to the owners, many of them withdrew their vehicles.

Some even filed a petition in the High Court of Karnataka questioning the Government move. But the court has dismissed the petition, Mr. Saleem added.

Though the Government invited tenders from private agencies to provide towing vehicles, no one responded.

"Thus we have decided to have our own cranes and towing vehicles," Mr. Saleem said.

Audit

Meanwhile, an audit of the towing charges collected in the last 10 years has been ordered as some misappropriation was noticed a year ago, Mr. Saleem said.

Case booked

A cashier at the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic-East) had allegedly misappropriated Rs. 4 lakhs that was collected as towing charges during 2002-03.

When the irregularities came to light in 2004, a criminal case was booked against the cashier in the Cubbon Park Police Station, he said.

Transferred

The cashier, who was by then transferred to Bidar as Section Superintendent, is at large for the past one year, Mr. Saleem said.

The traffic police officials had deposited with the cashier towing charges they had collected. But the cashier had not remitted it into the department's bank account, Mr. Saleem said.

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