Wrongly levied e-challans drive car owners up the wall
MUMBAI: Last December, city resident Prabhat Tiwari took to social media platform X to complain that the traffic police had towed his electric car away while it was being charged near Mantralaya. Tiwari was forced to pay the e-challan of ₹972 for “unauthorised parking” to get his car back—which, he says, was not causing any obstruction to traffic, as it was at a charging station. Tagging the Mumbai police in his post, he uploaded videos from the location and accused the constables concerned of breaking the charging wire and towing away the car.
Like Tiwari, scores of vehicle owners in Mumbai have expressed their grievances on social media, criticising the police department for overstepping its authority and issuing e-challans in order to meet its ‘targets’. Between 2019 and 2023, the traffic police collected ₹579.9 crore from fines levied through e-challans. But a whopping ₹685 crore remains to be recovered, mostly because motorists are disputing the imposition of the fine.
In 2023, the Mumbai traffic police issued 36 lakh e-challans, imposing a total fine amount of ₹2,05,83,76,500. Of these, 1,18,439 e-challans were issued for breaching the speed limit and 10,33,930 for causing obstruction to traffic. E-challans for illegal and haphazard parking topped the chart, one of the main causes of traffic jams, said Anil Kumbhare, joint commissioner of police (traffic). “People park their vehicles despite seeing a BMC No Parking sign,” he said. Motorists, however, have pointed out that not every e-challan is valid. Several people said they had received e-challans for “haphazard or illegal parking” at places they never visited on that day; some said they even got challans for vehicles they did not own. Under the prevailing rules, commuters get an e-challan for speeding with a photo of them at the steering wheel and the speed at which they were driving. However, the scores of e-challans sent for “causing obstruction to free flow of traffic” just have a photo of the vehicle’s number plate, without even remotely suggesting where and how the vehicle was causing obstruction to traffic. Karan Jotwani, founder of the Lokhandwala Oshiwara Citizen’s Association, told HT that he received an e-challan a month earlier for “causing danger and inconvenience” to commuters by parking his vehicle in a public area. “I was in Juhu and had parked my scooter near a shopping centre,” he said. “There was no board prohibiting parking and my scooter was not obstructing any traffic flow.”
Jotwani wanted to fight it out but decided that paying the fine was less time-consuming. Many commuters also pointed out the impropriety happening in the e-challan process, whereby constables would click photos on their personal cell phones and upload them on the e-challan machines. Constables are supposed to use only the e-challan machines, otherwise even an off-duty constable can take pictures on his phone and send it to meet his work target. “But when one complains about a false challan, it gets rejected with the response that the fine stands, based on the version of the policeman who had clicked the photo. This is completely unfair,” said Jotwani.
The fine for obstructing traffic is ₹500 and goes up to ₹1,500 for a repeat offence. In one case, a media professional was issued e-challans totalling ₹21,000 for parking his vehicle in a privately owned open space where a traffic constable used to click photographs of his vehicle daily. “My car was outside my society gate, and we took it out occasionally,” he said. One day, I was stopped by a traffic policeman and told that there were several e-challans pending against us.”
Architect Gaurav Jhunjhunwala was sent a challan for parking at a space in Vile Parle East. “There was no No Parking sign at the space,” he said. “Traffic policemen themselves would suggest it as a parking spot, as there was demolition work going on and no car could enter the building premises.” Jhunjhunwala said he would challenge the e-challan even if it meant spending an entire day at the Lok Adalat.
While motorists said that there were no Parking signs at many places where they were fined, Kumbhare said the motorists might have missed them. Transport analyst Sudhir Badami said the police needed to put up proper signs. “They also need to warn motorists before issuing multiple challans for parking in a spot without a signboard,” he said.
Experts also pointed out that due to the increasing number of allegedly false challans, drivers were reluctant to pay unless they were pushed into a corner with legal proceedings, thus increasing the pending e-challan amounts. In September 2022, the traffic police had approached the Mumbai District Legal Services Authority when the pending fines crossed Rs 1,100 crore, after which they started sending notices to defaulters to either pay the fine or be present before the Lok Adalat. Kumbhare pointed out that parking in a No Parking zone or on the road, obstructing traffic flow even for five minutes, was illegal, even if the driver was sitting inside the vehicle. “We have observed double and triple parking on busy roads which cause huge traffic jams, especially owing to the road space eaten up by work on several infrastructure projects,” he said.
Traffic police officials, in their defence, said they had set up a mechanism for grievance redressal regarding e-challans.
“We have a desk at the traffic police headquarters in Worli where commuters can get their problems solved,” said a traffic police officer. Another official said that taking cognisance of commuter complaints, the police had instructed policemen to refrain from using their personal mobile phones to click photos.
As the city’s vehicle population has more than doubled in the last decade, with around 2.5 lakh vehicles being added every year, the city is witnessing an acute shortage of parking spaces. Lack of private parking spaces results in parking on the streets, leaving no space for lakhs of vehicles on the city roads. Traffic expert Ashok Datar, said there were at least six to seven lakh vehicles parked on the roads every day. “The authorities should minimise this to two lakh vehicles and ensure that public parking spaces are utilised,” he said.
TOMORROW: Lack of parking spaces in Mumbai