UP traffic cops to don blue trousers from Dec 1

Lucknow:  Come December 1, Uttar Pradesh traffic police will once again don blue trousers instead of the existing khaki – a light shade of yellow and brown.

“At a meeting of the DGP, it was unanimously decided by officers to change the colour of khaki trousers to blue from December 1. It has been done to give the traffic police a separate identify,” a senior official said here.

Now traffic cops will wear white shirts and blue trousers for which the government has sanctioned Rs 2,250 per year to a cop for the uniform. During the BSP regime, Mayawati had changed the uniform of traffic police from white to blue on April 1, 2008, stating that white colour gets dirty easily.

The Samajwadi Party had protested the move alleging that the colour blue was similar to the uniform of BSP volunteers. “It is just a stunt to promote the colour of the ruling BSP government. Now, one can even get confused with the BSP’s volunteer force and the traffic police, as both are dressed in blue,” Samajwadi Party had said.

In 2012, when the SP came to the power, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav reversed the Mayawati government’s decision and changed the colour of state traffic police’s uniform from blue to khaki on July 1, 2012.

Blue is considered a favourite of the BSP. The then SP government had said that the reason behind the change of colour was that it resembled that of private security agencies and was confusing.