More than 2,000 minors have been booked in Hyderabad this year for driving vehicles without a licence since January, the city's traffic police said.
As part of an ongoing drive against underage driving, authorities in the city announced that they registered 2,217 cases as of June 18 and ensured that courts imposed fines amounting to around Rs 16.32 lakh, on the violators. 1,932 chargesheets have also been filed.
"We are continuing the drive in the city and informing parents and children about the problems they would face in getting booked for violating the law. We are urging minors not to drive the vehicles until they get a license to drive. We have also assisted a few college students to have access to driving licenses as a part of the awareness campaign," Anil Kumar, Additional Commissioner of Traffic told ANI.
In the past, a magistrate court in Hyderabad had even sent 10 parents to prison for one day, for letting their minor children drive.
A few parents of the minors had been jailed last year on charge of allowing their minor children to drive and some minors sent to juvenile homes, but this year only fines have been imposed so far, he said.
The police have said that they received complaints of several minors driving vehicles and warned the parents that they would be booked under the Motor Vehicles Act if caught.
Minors and parents are also made to attend counselling after being caught so that they are sensitised to the dangers of underage driving.
The city's traffic police are presently also undertaking another drive along with the Road Transport Authority (RTA). As schools reopen in the city, authorities have been cracking down on vehicles like autos, vans and buses, which ferry the students and resort to overcrowding. As part of the special drive, the police said that as many as 521 cases had been registered last week, out of which 246 dealt with overcrowded autos and vans.
The police also said that around 30 teams had been formed in coordination with the RTA and the authorities also found that many vehicles did not have proper documents.