Gurugram challan recovery weak despite surge in traffic fines: RTI

Police issued over 1.2 million challans worth ₹126.83 crore in 2025 but recovered only ₹17.5 crore; pendency worsens with unpaid fines piling up.

Despite a sharp rise in traffic challans, enforcement and recovery remain weak in Gurugram, with police collecting only a fraction of penalties issued under the Motor Vehicles Act, according to data from an RTI filed by HT.

Recovery ratio across key violations remains low, with most dues from camera-detected offences as motorists delay or contest penalties. (HT Archive)

The Gurugram traffic police issued 1,244,812 challans in 2025 across the top ten violations, amounting to ₹126.83 crore, but recovered only ₹17.5 crore. This marks a continued decline from ₹19.6 crore in 2024 and ₹24.85 crore in 2023.

Even as ticketing rose 1.5 times from 834,122 challans worth ₹99.2 crore in 2023, recovery has dropped nearly 70% year-on-year. Officials attributed the surge in ticketing to 1,200 CCTV cameras, including 308 AI-backed automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) systems installed at 218 junctions.

Violation-wise data for 2025 showed a low recovery-to-penalty ratio of 12:100 to 23:100 across categories such as wrong-side driving, overspeeding, lane changes, signal jumping, and helmet or seatbelt violations. Drink-and-drive cases were excluded, as penalties are court-driven.

A large share of unpaid fines came from violations largely detected through ANPR cameras, including mobile phone use (about 88%), signal jumping and wrong-side driving (about 86%), lane changes (about 80%), parking (about 77%) and overspeeding (about 83%).

Pendency has worsened further in 2026, reaching 92.5% till March, with only ₹1.2 crore recovered from ₹19.6 crore in penalties.

The cumulative pendency of outstanding dues stood at ₹74.44 crore in 2023, ₹75.10 crore in 2024, ₹109.33 crore in 2025, and ₹18.35 crore till March this year. Officials said a significant number of violators have sought concessions on these pending fines through virtual courts.

In 2024, ₹94.7 crore fines were issued in total, of which, ₹19.6 crore was recovered during the year, which includes dues from previous years, officials said.

“The recoveries usually take a long time, as many of the commuters either fail to pay their fine promptly within a stipulated time of 90 days under the MV Act or they seek relief from the virtual court by contesting those fines,” said Prateek Gehlot, deputy commissioner of police (traffic), who assumed charge on April 03.

Officials said unpaid fines are automatically transferred to virtual courts if not cleared within 90 days. Recovery is handled jointly by the district traffic police’s challan branch and the motor vehicle department. “While fines against commercial vehicles such as buses, trucks, autos and taxis are largely collected through the regional transport authority (RTA) within a day or two, with impounding measures enforced in failure of compliance, the remaining regular violations are monitored by traffic police,” a senior official from the transport department said, requesting anonymity.

Gehlot said many motorists remain unaware of pending fines due to missing mobile or email links in vehicle registrations. “Awareness drives are being held regularly to establish these missing data links to make online disposable systems feasible in the long run,” he said.

Police said e-challans are sent via SMS links, but many violators delay payments hoping for court relief or until registration renewal nears.

Gehlot said enforcement is being stepped up. “Four vehicles with over 40 pending fines were impounded over the past two months. A list of 100 such motorists with over 50 unpaid fines was also made public, and notices were issued to them in March,” he said.

He added that zonal officers have been directed to ensure on-spot recovery from violators with multiple pending challans. The traffic engineering centre (TEC), along with experts, has also identified stretches lacking proper signage and markings. “These changes starting from next week will likely bring a behavioural change among commuters to follow rules. Letters are being issued to the civic bodies to implement commuter-friendly traffic measures on priority,” Gehlot said.