Bhubaneswar: As part of steps to strengthen road safety, the Odisha government operationalised an intelligent enforcement management system (IEMS) on four additional national highway corridors for live generation and issue e-challans from Saturday.
According to officials, the highway stretches to be monitored include Manguli-Sambalpur, a four-lane divided carriageway passing through Kataka, Dhenkanal, Anugola and Sambalpur districts.
The maximum speed limits on the stretch are 60 kmph + five per cent for two-wheelers, 100 kmph + five per cent for light motor vehicles and 80 kmph + five per cent for heavy motor vehicles.
The two other highway stretches are Brahmapur to Taptapani (two-lane NH/SH in Ganjam with limits of 50 km/hr + 5 pc for two-wheelers and 60 km/hr + 5 pc for both light and heavy motor vehicles) and Berhampur to Bhanjanagar (two-lane NH in Ganjam) with identical speed limits.
According to Transport commissioner-cum-State Transport Authority (STA) chairman Amitabh Thakur, the move aims to strengthen road safety through transparent, technology-based enforcement in accordance with the Motor Vehicles Act, Central Motor Vehicles Rules and the standard operating procedure issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
The IEMS will detect and process four offences which include driving beyond the prescribed speed limit, triple-riding, helmetless riding as and wrong-side driving. Each e-challan will include clear photographic or video evidence, the vehicle registration mark, date, time, geo-location, speed, the applicable speed limit and the legal provisions disobeyed by a violator.
Stakeholders including collectors, SPs, road-owning agencies (NHAI, NH Wing and Works department) and RTOs have been assigned specific responsibilities for signage, road engineering, security of IEMS assets and to create awareness among the citizens.
The department also advised the road users and vehicle owners to keep their registration and contact details updated, use only official e-challan methods for payment or contest and refrain from obstructing, damaging or attempting to evade the electronic enforcement devices.