Traffic violations are on rise in urban areas in Andhra Pradesh amid Coronavirus

Amaravati: The government further enforced strict lockdown across all the urban areas in the State from Tuesday early morning onwards. As the number COVID19 positive cases mounted to 40 by Tuesday morning in the State, the state government has been cut downed the relaxation time by two more hours. Now, the police are allowing people to stay on the roads for the purchase of essential goods and groceries between 6 am to 9 am.

Initially, the government allowed purchasing the groceries till 1 pm from 6 am. It was reduced to 11 am on Monday and further reduced to 9 am on Tuesday. The officials informed that the relaxations further will be shortened in the coming days. On the other hand, some people have been violating lockdown rules and causing more damage to society, informed the police officials.

As on Tuesday morning, around 7,000 vehicles were seized by the police across the state as they violated the lockdown rules, informed the sources at the office of Director General of Police at Mangalagiri.

For instance, the traffic violations are very high for silly reasons in Guntur city alone, which is a virus hotspot and recorded 9 positive cases as on Tuesday morning. Vasu Kannuju, Circle Inspector of Traffic, informed that they have seized more than 500 vehicles in Guntur Municipal Corporation limits alone from March 23 to March 30. He informed that particularly the youth are violating traffic rules despite having awareness of the threat of the virus.

He further informed that they have been strictly implementing the rules and will continue to book the cases against the violators. All these seized vehicles will be released only after completing the lockdown period, duly following legal procedure. That means, the vehicles will be produced in the Courts and the violators have to collect them from there, as per the directions of the respective courts.