'Green brigade' to check traffic pollution

Bangalore, Sep 14 (UNI) Karnataka has put ten additional mobile pollution checking vehicles on the roads to make pollution control more effective in the state.

Talking to newspersons here today, Transport Minister N Cheluvarayaswamy said the vehicles were equipped with gas analysers and smoke meters to check excess smoke.

The gas analysers were being used for measuring hydro carbon and carbon monoxide emissions and smoke meters would be deployed to measure density of smoke emitted by vehicles.

These vehicles would be used by the 'Green Brigade' formed by the Transport Department to maintain clear environment, he said.

Mr Cheluvarayaswamy said the department had also introduced mobile interceptor vehicles in the city to book offences like over-speeding, helmet-less driving, reckless driving, lane violation and signal jumping with evidential photographs taken using laser cameras.

The surveillance camera with a zoom and tilt and 300 hours recording capacity and a high pitch 'wailing' siren with PA system fitted on the vehicle could help in decongesting traffic in peak hours in addition to capturing the live video for traffic analysis, later on, he said.

He said the department was also using the on-board latest Alco meter for checking drunken driving.

This data and picture cannot be modified or tampered and was very effective during disputes and court cases, he said.

The German-made mobile set up could be made operational in a few minutes for catching the offenders, he said.

It was possible to generate offence challans on the spot along with proof using a portabale printer, in addition to the processing of offence in the back-office, he said.

The entire hi-tech equipment were housed in a Gama model BS-III vehicles, he said.

UNI