The Traffic Department of the Calcutta Police (now Kolkata Police) was formally established in 1874, making it one of the earliest organized traffic enforcement units in India.
At its inception, the department had just 17 sepoys (native foot soldiers) tasked with regulating the increasingly chaotic street traffic of Calcutta — which was then the capital of British India.
By the mid-19th century, Calcutta was a bustling urban hub with:
Horse-drawn carriages, palanquins, and bullock carts crowding the narrow roads.
Growing numbers of rickshaws and eventually motorized vehicles by the late 19th and early 20th century.
The growing congestion prompted British administrators to create a dedicated traffic wing to maintain order.
The sepoys acted like traffic wardens, stationed at busy intersections to control movement — often with hand signals and whistles.
There were no traffic lights, and even road signage was minimal to nonexistent.
Enforcement was manual and often tailored to colonial priorities (like giving priority to the British officials’ carriages).
The department gradually expanded in the early 20th century with the introduction of traffic constables, patrol units, and eventually traffic signals (the first electric traffic lights in Calcutta came much later, in the 1950s).
Today, the Kolkata Police Traffic Department is one of the most advanced in India, using CCTV, AI-powered surveillance, traffic modeling, and smart signals.
