Bhubaneswar, Feb. 29: Police have decided to introduce driving licence readers to prevent rising traffic violations in the city.

The card readers would enable the police to find out traffic offences committed by the licence holder in the past and ascertain whether it was suspended for prior violations.

Speaking to The Telegraph, commissioner Y.B. Khurania said the police and the transport department recently held a meeting in this regard. "The reader would enable us to find out the validity of the smart-chip based driving licence," he said.

The cops said the licence would be swiped in the hand-held card reader. "For second-time offenders, we will impose double fine, which can extend up to Rs 1,000. For third-time violations, we may seize the vehicles. Bhubaneswar is likely to get 15 such devices while Cuttack would get around 10," said a police officer.

Traffic violation is rampant within Bhubaneswar with a bulk of commuters flouting the helmet rules and driving without seat belts. While the cops penalised 97,859 such offenders in 2014, it went up to 1.05 lakh in 2015.

The police collected Rs 2.58 crore as penalty from traffic offenders in 2015.

Khurania also said the police have roped in a Delhi-based organisation to conduct road safety audit in the twin cities to reduce mishaps, which will begin in March.

"In the first phase, it would conduct a study of the stretch between Pitapalli in Bhubaneswar and Manguli in Cuttack on the national highway. Besides, it would also conduct studies of one accident-prone stretch in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack each and suggest us measures to reduce mishaps in these stretches," said Khurania.

In a related development, the police have decided to constitute a team consisting of officials from the works department, National Highways Authority of India and the civic body, which would visit a metro city to study their measures for traffic management.

"The team would primarily focus on traffic management under flyovers," said a senior police officer.