I received a mail from Anil Sood who says, “The statement of the Transport Commissioner who is considered to be an intelligent officer that he is of the view to increase the speed limit from 50 to 60 and above in view of the new models of high speed cars including Marutis.

“It appears that the Commissioner Transport has forgotten one fact that the Transport Department in one year has booked only 151 cases of Rash and Negligent driving and there are no cases of Minor driving in Delhi (Source Delhi Right to Information) where as very often Media reports many accidents that are caused due to rash and negligent driving of new high speed cars.

“The blue line buses though supposed to have speed governors as per direction dated 20th November 1997, 10th & 16th December 1997 by the Apex Court continue to ply at speed much beyond 40 and flout the law with impunity creating panic on the roads. The Transport Department continues to watch such accidents helplessly without taking any deterrent action. The death toll on the roads of Delhi continues to go up. Who cares?

“It is suggested that the Transport Commissioner should first sit with Joint Commissioner (Traffic) and assess the damage that is caused by rash and negligent driving of cars, buses and trucks and also should meet the dependants of the victims before making such public announcements.”

Recently I met the Commissioner Transport Rajeev Talwar in a press conference. No doubt he is a very intelligent person and a great thinker and planner. The best part about him is that when he talks about infrastructure and planning, he doesn’t forget to talk about economics too. He told us that whenever they launch a drive to catch offenders who break rules of the road, they do it in consultation with Delhi Traffic Police.

Presently Delhi Transport department is solely catching autorickshaw drivers who take Delhiites for ride. He also informed that drive against polluting vehicles would continue forever. At that time he told me that for blueline buses, there’s already a drive launched by traffic police so transport department doesn’t want to prosecute buses, thus the low figures. The drive is a month old now and most Delhiites who travel by autorickshaws, can feel the difference. For the past one week, wherever I have travelled, I paid by meter. Although denial to go to a particular place is still there, but auto drivers now don’t mind taking passengers by meters, which wasn’t the case a month back. And the man behind the success of this drive, apart from the commissioner who entrusted the job to him, is Transport department’s Deputy Commissioner S.S. Gill. Regarding the increasing of the speed limit, I don’t want to comment coz, neither do I have the expertise nor do I have the power to implement it. It is a contentious matter, which can be debated to no end.