Cops issue 619 e- challans this year till March, 314 pay fines

NAVI MUMBAI: After repeated drives to catch motorists flouting traffic rules, data from the traffic department show that the number of e- challans issued have increased considerably. The Navi Mumbai traffic police was the first to introduce evidence- based challan in Maharashtra in August 2014.

This year, 619 e-challans have been issued until March and 314 people have paid the fines amounting to Rs21,700 while 172 people are pending. Around 133 e- challans have been returned owing to a wrong address. “A period of 15 days is given to offenders who have been issued an e-challan to pay the fine after which they are issued a summons. A fine of Rs100 is added to the original amount for each incremental day till the time they pay the fine,” said Vijay Niware, in-charge of the CCTV command centre at Belapur.

Records from the department said that in 2014, 1,840 motorists were given e- challans for flouting various traffic rules. Of this, 1,524 paid the fines amounting to Rs80,754. Another eighty have been issued summons f or not paying t heir fines beyond the stipulated time of fifteen days. Besides, 236 e- challans were returned to the traffic office because of wrong address.

In 2015, a total of 3,060 e-challans were issued, of which, 2,542 paid the fines amounting to Rs1.24 lakh and 153 people were given summons for not paying the fines. Another 365 challans were retur ned to the traffic office for wrong addresses.

Officials said that of those issued e- challans, most have been booked for not wearing helmets or seatbelts, using f ancy number plates, using mobile phones while driving, jumping signals or over-speeding. Officials however said that the major drawback of the system is the wrong addresses that motorists fail to update with the Regional Transport Offices.

“Many of the motorists do not update their address when they change it. Hence, we do not have the new addresses in our records. We have had several discussions on this however there is no way out to the problem until the motorists takes up the responsibility to update their addresses,” said Arvind Salve, DCP ( traffic) of Navi Mumbai.