Driving on wrong carriageway invites photo challans

Next time you stray onto the wrong carriageway, be ready to receive a photo-challan at your doorstep. More than 300 motorists have already been slapped with such photo-challans for driving on wrong carriageways, especially during VIP movements.

Next time you stray onto the wrong carriageway, be ready to receive a photo-challan at your doorstep. More than 300 motorists have already been slapped with such photo-challans for driving on wrong carriageways, especially during VIP movements.

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This is a general tendency of motorists to take their vehicles to the wrong carriageways while traffic police impose temporary restrictions on vehicular movement during VIP movements.

To get rid of this problem, the Delhi Traffic Police have started issuing photo-challans and sending them to the defaulters’ residential addresses.

A group of head constables in civvies will click photographs of the vehicles driving or stranded on wrong carriageways and send a challan of R2,000 along with the photograph.

Starting this first-of-its-kind initiative on March 9, traffic police have already sent such photo-challans to 304 people so far.

Some of the areas where traffic movement gets restricted during movements of VIPs like prime minister and president of India everyday include Chanakyapuri, Park Street, Tilak Marg and Vijay Chowk among other important intersections in New Delhi.

“People have a tendency to drive on the wrong carriageway when we restrict vehicular movement temporarily during VIP movements. They do it to avoid long queues of vehicles stranded on the roads so that when the restriction is withdrawn they can smoothly drive their vehicles away. But this propensity results into massive traffic chaos on busy arterial roads and intersections,” said Satyendra Garg, joint commissioner of police (traffic).

Delhi traffic police have 200 cameras and as many officials trained in operating them. But only 20 policemen are deployed on the job presently.