NEW DELHI, May 1: The blinkers are off. And the Delhi Police, after the first day of its latest drive against solar films and silver reflectors on car windows and windshields, was richer by at least Rs 6 lakh through challans issued till 9 pm.But, not surprisingly, the campaign has its quota of Doubting Thomases, led by Delhi Transport Minister Rajendra Gupta. He said today that he has written to the chief secretary about ``the colossal waste of manpower in enforcing the drive''. Police personnel, he added, ``should concentrate more on managing the traffic problem''. Delhi Police is under the Union Home Ministry, and Gupta's peeve clearly stems from a relatively petty ego.The Traffic Police, however, say that the drive was planned to reduce the accident rate and prevent recurrence of incidents similar to one in which a Japanese girl was allegedly gangraped inside a Maruti car with tinted windows. It would also help to check drinking inside cars.Police chief T.R. Kakkar, who was replaced by V.N. Singh later this evening, contributed his mite to the drive by having the film on his official Contessa peeled off. Others followed suit and by evening, at least the white Ambassadors at the police HQ at ITO had windows that conformed to the new rule.A random survey by the police this morning showed that around 20 per cent of the approximately 60,000 owners of Delhi-registered cars, with tinted glasses, had already adopted the latest specifications.Ravi Dudeja, however, was not among those who had done so. His Maruti car was stopped at Minto Bridge around 11.30 a.m.. Dudeja did not complain as he knew where he had erred, and readily paid a fine of Rs 100. For the Khanna family, on the other hand, their offence turned into a spectacle. When their car was stopped on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg this afternoon, a group of TV journalists, were at hand.After being handed out a challan for Rs 100, the police official removed the solar films from the Khannas' red Maruti car, using a blade and window cleaning detergent. A group of 50 witnessed ``the drive''. And the TV crew walked away with their ``clip of the day''.As part of the drive, 50 mobile teams comprising an officer, a constable and a helper are checking vehicles across the city. Each of these teams have been supplied with 5 cm x 5 cm samples of tinted glasses which will be used to compare with the tinted windshields and windows on cars.Sophisticated instruments like Lux meters or illuminators to measure the percentage of light transmitted through windows are, however, not being used because of the high cost of such equipment.DCP (Traffic) says: ``We had challaned 3,518 vehicles till 4 p.m. and removed solar films from 1,328 vehicles. We can't do anything about tinted windows, but have advised car owners to change these very soon. ''
