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NEW DELHI: The distance charts issued by the state transport department that are displayed in autorickshaws have glaring errors in them say the Delhi traffic police. Joint commissioner of police (traffic) Maxwell Pereira sent a letter regarding this to the state transport department on Monday.
Pereira, when contacted, confirmed the traffic police’s move. He said, ‘‘We were shocked to find that distances in the state government’s chart were grossly incorrect.’’ The distance chart shows a matrix of 50 points in the city. A mix-and-match of these points gives 2,500 combinations, in terms of distances.
‘‘The actual distances have been measured by physically travelling from one point to the other by the shortest motorable route,’’ said Arun Kampani, deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi range-traffic).
‘‘New flyovers have come up and right turns have been closed. All these factors should be kept in mind,’’ Kampani said.
The traffic police said the only reason behind such gross anomalies is the measurement of distances using a linear scale on Delhi’s map. ‘‘They might have taken the linear distance into consideration using a scale, instead of the shortest motorable route,’’ Pereira said.
State transport minister Ajay Maken ruled out the possibility of discrepancies in these charts and said the distance chart had been prepared by the Surveyor General of India.
