E-challan likely to hit Delhi soon

The ambitious and long-awaited project of Delhi Police - e-challan - is likely to be partially in place by the end of the month, Subhendu Ray reports.

The ambitious and long-awaited project of Delhi Police - e-challan - is likely to be partially in place by the end of the month.

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After running into several delays, the e-challan system has got the final nod of the state government in November. The date and area for commissioning e-challan partially may be decided on Tuesday, sources said.

"While the commissioning of e-challan will become fully operational by March, a part of it is likely to be inaugurated in January end," said Sudhir Yadav, special correspondent (traffic).

But the hi-tech way of prosecuting rule violating vehicles would be unable to catch frequent violators till a database of all vehicles is stored in the system. Yadav said that with e-challan becoming functional, there would be a record of all traffic violations against defaulting drivers and vehicles. "This will initiate a new regime of better enforcement by having higher penalties for second and subsequent prosecutions and ensuring a point system for supervision and cancellation of driving licences," he said.

According to sources in the Delhi traffic police, they do not have the soft version of the database ready with them. As a result, after the e-challan is introduced, each violator caught would be considered as a first time violator.

Earlier, Satyendra Garg, joint commissioner of police (traffic), had said that 100 devices of e-challan would be used during a special New Year's eve drive against drunk driving in central Delhi. But the plan did not materialise as devices were reportedly not ready.

After the database of about 73 lakh vehicles is stored in the devices, the prosecution history of a violator will be at the finger-tip of the traffic police. Besides, details of violation once stored cannot be changed or tampered with or deleted unlike the existing manual challan system, said a traffic police officer.

An e-challan is an electronic format of the challan that will replace the traditional manual challan book. Through this device, the police will challan road norms violators online.

The police have hired 1,200 e-enforcement machines to cover the entire city and these will be issued to every traffic head constable, assistant sub-inspector, sub-inspector and inspector after training.