Unpaid fines piling up as traffic violators in Lucknow evade challans
Violators haven’t paid up ₹127.40 cr in fines for 5,54,065 challans over the last one year. This is a staggering 92% of the 7,56,745 challans amounting up to ₹137.5 crore issued between March 2023 and March 2024
LUCKNOW The City of Nawabs, rich in history, has created another history of sorts - traffic violators haven’t paid up ₹127.40 crore in fines for 5,54,065 challans over the last one year. This is a staggering 92% of the 7,56,745 challans amounting up to ₹137.5 crore issued between March 2023 and March 2024, according to traffic police records accessed by Hindustan Times.
This huge amount includes fines on commercial vehicles and private vehicles that are regular offenders. A detailed study of the said data revealed that 92.64% of the challan amount remains unpaid by traffic violators, showing high reluctance in paying fines.
“The process for recovery of fines is such that it is difficult to realise the amount quickly. The provisions are such that there is no motivation for offenders to pay it immediately,” ADCP (traffic) Ajay Kumar told HT.
After issuance of challans virtually, offenders get an SMS on their mobile phones. “If they don’t pay the fine in a few days, the challan goes to Lok Adalat, where offenders can get away with not-so-stiff fines,” he added.
The data showed that the highest one-month fine amount stood at ₹15.7 crore from 81,246 challans in December 2023 and the lowest was ₹9.12 crore from 47,205 challans in September 2023. Even after the recovery of some amount, December still saw the maximum unrecovered amount of ₹14.6 crore from 58,706 challans.
September saw the lowest recovery amount of ₹84.3 crore from 34,149 challans.
According to the recent pollution data released by CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (IITR), as of March 31, 2024, Lucknow had a total of 29,79,734 vehicles (over 29 lakh). It was found that the challan amount was over 474% of the total number of vehicles registered in the city.