Indus Valley Times

By Sukanta Kumar Mohanty

Bhubaneswar, April 29: Odisha road and transportation department has launched a special scheme – Driving Electronics Enforcement to Save Human Lives (DEESHL) to check accidents on national highways and put a curb on the unruly drivers in the State.

The scheme has been implemented along the 140 kilometre stretch of Rameswar and Panikoili road. Advanced cameras and signal towers have been set up at 21 places to keep a watch on the unruly drivers.

Cameras have also been set up at three entry points of Odisha border–Golanthara, Rupsa and Sohela to keep a vigil on the movement of vehicles entering into the State from neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh.

As per reports, number of accidents has been increased unprecedentedly along National Highway 16 which has been a cause of concern for the transport department.  The new scheme with adoption of advanced technology like ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognisation) cameras has been launched to check the accidents. The cameras will be operated by artificial intelligence and those have the capacity to record speed of the vehicles.

If any light or heavy vehicle crosses the prescribed speed limit, an SMS will be sent to the mobile number linked with the registration number of the vehicle automatically notifying about the fault committed and the amount of fee which needs to be paid.

In the first phase, the scheme has been implemented at five places-Rameswar, Tapanga, Kuradhamal, Batabhuasuni temple and Tamando to check speed limits of the vehicles. The command and control centres of these cameras have been set up at RTO office in Bhubaneswar. The scheme will be monitored by Intelligent Transport Management System (ITMS) in near future.

Apart from speed driving, the advanced cameras will also detect drivers driving on wrong routes, without seat belts, helmets and with two pillion riders. E-chalans will be sent to those drivers violating traffic rules.