Two years after they launched the e-challan system, the Mumbai traffic police have now decided to deliver penalty notices to violators’ doorstep via general post office, to collect pending fines.
In January this year, the police launched an initiative under which motorists receive messages on their phones about the nature of traffic violation and the penalty amount.
With payment of nearly 7.5lakh e-challans pending, the police have realised that not all motorists and bikers have registered their phone number with the regional transport offices (RTOs). Another reason, according to an officer, is that a few motorists mislead the police, saying that they have not received any challan message.
The Mumbai traffic police plan to link the e-challan fine system with the postal service. With this, they want to iron out shortcomings in the system.
Once a driver receives an e-challan via post, he has to visit the nearest chowky to pay up the fine within a stipulate time.
“We have found that not every driver has registered his mobile number with the RTO. This means that they don’t receive e-challan messages,” said Amitesh Kumar, joint commissioner of police (traffic). An officer said after exploring several alternatives, they decided to opt for the postal service to collect fines. Before the postal service, the Mumbai traffic police have taken several measures to increase fine collection. First, 500 repeat offenders with more than 2,700 challans were identified. Each violator was issued five of more challans and the penalty had been pending for months. Traffic chowkies were given the list and asked to physically trace the address of these motorists from RTO records and summon them to pay up the fine. Second, the traffic police set a target of 2,700 more motorists each with three or more challans. However, this method failed to bear fruits.
{{/usCountry}}“We have found that not every driver has registered his mobile number with the RTO. This means that they don’t receive e-challan messages,” said Amitesh Kumar, joint commissioner of police (traffic). An officer said after exploring several alternatives, they decided to opt for the postal service to collect fines. Before the postal service, the Mumbai traffic police have taken several measures to increase fine collection. First, 500 repeat offenders with more than 2,700 challans were identified. Each violator was issued five of more challans and the penalty had been pending for months. Traffic chowkies were given the list and asked to physically trace the address of these motorists from RTO records and summon them to pay up the fine. Second, the traffic police set a target of 2,700 more motorists each with three or more challans. However, this method failed to bear fruits.
{{/usCountry}}The traffic police also realised that at times drivers were unable to pay the fine through their card owing to poor network or malfunctioning of the machine. The general post office (GPO) would now send the e-challan to their residential addresses. The officer said that they had begun stopping drivers, asking to pay their pending fine through debit/credit card or Paytm. If the driver does not have money in his account, he will be asked to call his relatives to the spot. Using this method, the police had managed to collect Rs20 lakh in 10 days. But the police believe that this method could not be continued as it demanded huge manpower.
Now, the traffic police had asked the GPO to submit a proposal to link the e-challan system with the postal service, “We have received the proposal but we are still thinking over it,” said a traffic police officer.
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