Calcutta, July 25: Alarmed at the spate of pedestrian deaths in road accidents in the past few months, the traffic wing of Calcutta Police is launching yet another anti-jaywalking drive to make the public aware of the benefits of adhering to traffic rules.

This is the fifth such drive in the past two years in a city where pavements do not exist at all, or they are occupied by hawkers.

“The drive is aimed at making the people aware of traffic safety norms for their own benefit in view of the fatalities on the roads,” said joint commissioner of police (traffic) Banibrata Basu. “The drive will be concentrated on five points: the Hard Core crossing (Eastern Metropolitan Bypass-CIT Road), the Rash Behari Avenue-Cornfield Road intersection, the Mahatma Gandhi Road-Central Avenue intersection, the Sealdah intersection near Prachi cinema, and the Park Street-AJC Bose Road intersection,” said Prabahan Roy, officer-in-charge of Jorabagan traffic guard.

While rash driving remains the principal cause of road deaths, jaywalking figures next on the list of reasons for the rising toll. Road deaths totalled 212 this year, till June.

Over the past two years, the city traffic police had launched four anti-jaywalking drives, a trend started by M.K. Singh when he occupied the office of deputy commissioner of police (traffic).

The first three initiatives were taken by Singh himself, but were largely experimental in nature, and failed to elicit much response from the public. The last move was conducted last December under the supervision of then DC (traffic) Peeyush Pandey.

Traffic officers claim that the last effort was successful, with Pandey himself manning the Park Street-Jawaharlal Nehru Road intersection. But statistics obtained from Lalbazar police headquarters prove otherwise.

In January 2004 itself, days after Pandey’s anti-jaywalking drive, the toll rose to 40, the highest this year, with the exception of May which witnessed 43 road deaths.

Pedestrians in the city have always complained about there not being enough zebra crossings. With a total road length of 1,404 km covering 104.5 sq km, and almost 12 lakh vehicles, accidents are inevitable.

“Given Calcutta’s limited road space, the construction of subways, like in the other metropolitan cities may be a good idea. But the cooperation of the civic authorities would be essential to get the formidable infrastructure in place,” Basu said.