Call centre set up by Mumbai traffic cops recovers e-challans worth ₹1.12 crore

The call centre was started by the traffic police on December 7 only with the purpose of recovering fines from traffic violators who had received e-challans

Twenty-four days after it was constituted, a special call centre team of the Mumbai traffic police has recovered pending fines worth ₹1.12 crore issued through e-challans from motorists for violation of traffic rules.

Traffic police officers said there was a backlog of 29 lakh unpaid e-challans for various violations, amounting to ₹315 crore. (HT FILE)

The call centre was started by the traffic police on December 7 only with the purpose of recovering fines from traffic violators who had received e-challans.

Since then, the traffic police department has managed to contact 4,600 motorists and recover the fines from 2,596 violators.

According to joint commissioner of police (traffic) Yashasvi Yadav, the call centre has two help desk personnel and two constables to make calls to violators to remind them to pay their dues.

“There were a lot of pending e-challans. We set up the call centre to reach out to those motorists who had not paid the fines. We will continue the call centre until the entire pending amount is recovered,” said Yadav.

Traffic police officers said there was a backlog of 29 lakh unpaid e-challans for various violations, amounting to ₹315 crore.“We had earlier made public appeals, urging motorists to pay their dues, but did not get a proper response. A mobile app was also launched to make it easier for the violators to pay their fines, but that too failed to work,” said an officer.

Earlier, the traffic police had requested the regional transport department to cancel the licences of 2,000 motorists who failed to pay their pending e-challans.