Cabby’s ~4 lakh traffic challan exposes glitches

NEW DELHI: Mehboob Ali, a taxi driver, has been running in and out of the Delhi Traffic Police headquarters for three days. On Friday, he got a traffic ticket asking him to pay a fine of ~4 lakh. The notice said that he was being censured for a host of violations — speeding (~2,000), rash and negligent driving (~5,000), not driving within his lane (~1,000) and jumping a red light (~1,000).

Though he was charged with multiple offences, Ali says the fine amount should have been ~9,000 (if the prescribed fines for the violations is added up), and not ~4 lakh.

Ali, whose challans were based on camera-based traffic tickets issued during the lockdown, is not the only one who has complained to the traffic police’s notice department that they are being charged exorbitant amounts for violations and being provided inadequate or incorrect evidence due to alleged glitches in the automated system.

Between January and March, 113 of all e-challans issued in Delhi were accepted for “review” (in other words, it was found that there was some discrepancy in them), out of over 1.5 million challans that were issued in the period. Since May 13, when a virtual court was set up to clear challans and examine complaints, 1,528 e-challans have been reviewed in 12 days (till May 25), out of nearly 18,000 that have been admitted in virtual courts.

“On Monday, I visited the traffic police headquarters for the third time to clarify that there has been some mistake. The fine amount is too

high and I will not be able to afford to pay this much money,” said Ali, who will contest the amount in the virtual court that is presided over by district judges.

According to two officials from the Delhi Traffic Police’s notice department who asked not to be named, the apparent glitches thrown up by the automated system fall into four broad categories: one, a single photo is shared as evidence for an offence but challans for multiple violations are issued against it; the vehicle sent as evidence does not match the one being fined; the fine amount adds up to a much more than the sum total of the challans; and the same challan notice is issued multiple times.

Joint commissioner of police (traffic) Narendra Singh Bundela said more camera-based fined were being issued to avoid physical proximity between drivers and traffic officials during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We have shifted our strategy from physical enforcement to electronic enforcement in order to protect the health of our personnel and the public. We had come up with the concept of virtual courts to strengthen the system for camera-based prosecutions,” Bundela said.

But the system, according to some of the complainants, may not be without its problems.

Sunil Saxena, a resident of south Delhi’s East of Kailash, says he started going back to work after the lockdown last Monday, and his first week on the road, received fine demand of ~1.23 lakh.

“I checked the traffic police website and the proof of the violation is not even my car. I have ‘not accepted’ the fine on the website, but have been asked to come with my drivers’ licence and the vehicle documents within the next 60 days,” said Saxena.

Though the increase in the number of people contesting their fines has raised questions about the camera-based challan system as a whole, the traffic police department says the problems are still a small percentage of the total fines issued, and that violations are verified multiple times by a team of traffic officials at the control room.

Since March 25, traffic police have issued 100,436 e-challan notices through SMS, and 80 through speed posts. How many of these have been challenged was not immediately available from the traffic police’s notice department.

Hardyal Singh, traffic engineering expert from Iit-delhi, said that since if an integrated traffic management system was in place in the city, such discrepancies could have been avoided.

“Delhi has been talking about an integrated traffic management system for traffic prosecutions for many years now, but we are still struggling with basics such as camera installations. However, now that the police is moving towards tech based prosecutions even though it is facing some initial teething problems, it will set the base for a strong prosecution system,” Singh said.