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Cashless challans for traffic violations in Ranchi likely from Oct 1
The traffic department will use handheld devices for payments.
Traffic violators in Ranchi will no longer be able to “bargain” with traffic police personnel on the amount of fine. Starting from October 1, the Ranchi traffic department will use handheld e-challan devices for penalty payments by traffic violators.
Normally, a violator can pay challan to the traffic police on the spot, besides depositing the penalty amount at courts and various traffic police offices. Now, the “challaned” drivers can pay penalties on the spot through debit and credit cards, said Sanjay Ranjan Singh, superintendent of police (traffic).
The initiative will not only curb bribes but also help the traffic department to maintain records of violators.
The Ranchi traffic police department has procured 10 handheld devices that will be carried by police personnel on motorcycles. The registration number of a vehicle violating traffic rules will be entered in the device, from which a text message will be sent to the vehicle owner informing him about the violation.
The owner will have the option to text the contact number of the person who is driving the car or motorcycle.
“At times relatives or friends of vehicle owners are driving so we have kept the option for the owner to send the contact number of the person out with the car,” he said, adding that devices will also be provided to traffic police pickets soon.
Often traffic violators pay less than the amount of fine to traffic constables and don’t take a receipt, police sources said.
“If the fine amount is Rs 200, many violators offer to pay Rs 50 or Rs 100 to the constable as bribe. The devices will help curb such practices,” said a traffic police official, who did not wish to be named.
In 2015, the department provided four android-based handled e-chalan devices to traffic police personnel but as the machines were not equipped to swap credit and debit cards and susceptible to wear and tear, the gadget could not be put to use effectively, said Singh.
“The new devices have high tensile strength. Now, the devices have been improvised to make it easy to use.”
The department has already started preparing a digitalized data of vehicles in the city and their owners. Earlier, the data was maintained manually which posed troubles in introducing e-chalan system.
Traffic department figures show that more than three lakh vehicles ply in the city and there are only 375 constables to manage traffic.
Until June this year, the traffic police fined at least 32,118 vehicles for violating traffic rules and collected more than Rs 90 lakh fine between January and June.
Singh further said that the department has also started installing CCTV cameras on roads in front of malls, shopping complexes and interjections to monitor the traffic police personnel on duty.
“There have been complaints about traffic police constables arbitrarily imposing fines. With the CCTV cameras we will be able to monitor police personnel if they are doing their duty properly,” he said.
A traffic official said that the department was also working on linking adhaar number of vehicle owners with the data to maintain records of habitual offenders.
