Telangana sets up TG-TMARS for unified traffic and road safety policing | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: The Telangana govt has created a specialised police bureau to bring traffic management, enforcement, road crash investigation and highway patrolling under a common statewide framework. The Telangana Traffic Management, Road and Rail Safety Bureau (TG-TMARS), headquartered in Hyderabad, will have jurisdiction over national highways, expressways, state highways, district roads and urban and rural roads.Headed by an ADGP/IGP-rank officer, the bureau will function under the supervision of the State Road Safety Council, chaired by the chief minister, while administrative and disciplinary control will remain with the DGP.The move comes as Telangana has more than 32,000 km of roads and over 1.8 crore registered vehicles. The govt said existing traffic wings lacked a common command structure for standardisation, technology, training, enforcement analytics and review.TG-TMARS will have Traffic and Road & Rail Safety wings. The Traffic wing will oversee traffic management, signals, markings, signage, special-event arrangements and coordination with road-owning agencies and local bodies. The Road & Rail Safety wing will oversee electronic enforcement, e-challans, control rooms and action against drunk driving, speeding, wrong-side driving, helmet and seatbelt violations and overloading. It will also supervise highway patrols.Every police station will designate a road crash response officer for round-the-clock crash response, securing accident scenes, shifting the injured during the golden hour and recording details on iRAD/eDAR. Fatal and grievous crashes will be examined by multi-departmental committees. Crash data will be used to identify high-risk corridors, black spots and repeat violations.Highway patrol units will be created at police stations with traffic and road-safety issues and those covering more than 50 km of national or state highways. Each unit will have a head constable, constable and vehicle equipped with dashboard cameras, automatic number plate recognition and speed-detection systems.A State Traffic Training Academy will train personnel in traffic systems, electronic enforcement and crash investigation. A Vigilance, Standards and Compliance Cell will audit e-challans and enforcement and examine complaints.A Traffic Management Fund will receive 40% of police compounding fees and fines. The govt has sanctioned a Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) post in every commissionerate and an Additional SP (Traffic) post in every district. TG-TMARS must become fully operational within six months. Existing traffic wings and e-challan operations will come under its oversight, while 300 posts from police wings will migrate to the bureau.