Officials of the city police traffic branch, while expressing helplessness over the `delay' not a single rupee has been given back to the police despite an order almost a year ago feel that they will definitely be better equipped if part of the funds collected in the form of fines are re-directed for developmental and educational work.

``Policing will definitely be more effective if we have video cameras, traffic cones, and slides for developmental and educational programmes,'' a traffic branch official told Express Newsline. He added that the traffic branch had no separate fund and had to depend on the civic body for these things.

The problem, apparently, lies in the DGP's office, where a committee has been appointed to allot funds to police commissionerates but has not done much since. Police officials here confirmed that the High Court had directed the government to spare funds for traffic branches and that the government too had in turn asked the DGP's office to do so. They are however ignorant of what happened after that and why the funds have not been received since.

Clamping on-the-spot fines against traffic offenders began in 1995, about the same time when the Supreme Court discarded thousands of traffic related cases that were pending for decades. The amount was deposited in the state treasury by the department. It was in 1997 that a suo motto writ was filed in the Gujarat High Court, contending that part of the amount collected by the traffic branch in the form of fines, be utilised for developmental and traffic education.

Admitting the writ, the High Court, in early 1998 had directed the government to redivert 50 per cent of the fines collected to the respective traffic branch in the city and district. The government, in turn asked the office of the Director General of Police (DGP) to form a committee to co-ordinate the transfer of half of the fines collected back to the police force. A Road Safety Fund was also established for the same purpose in June last year.

Traffic sources say that while about 75 lakh rupees were recovered as fines in 1998, another whopping Rs 1.10 crores have been recovered in the first four months of the present year alone. Despite having invited the wrath of rickshaw drivers and passengers who allege `high handedness', the police have been carrying on with the drive in earnest.