Postal dept ready to deliver traffic e-challans by speed post

Mumbai, Oct 25 (PTI) : The Maharashtra and Goa circle of the postal department has expressed willingness to deliver e-challans to traffic offenders by speed post.

The department has written a letter to the Mumbai Traffic Police as well as the state government in this regard, an official said.

The traffic police had been sending e-challans to motorists for violating norms through SMS. However, this system is reportedly not working well as e-challans are not getting delivered properly because of frequent change in mobile phone numbers of offenders.

"Therefore, we have come forward and written to the traffic police as well as the state government to let us deliver e-challans to their (offenders') doorstep through our speed-post service.

"The violators can deposit challan amount in the nearest post office through e-payment mode of the department," said H C Agrawal, Chief Post Master General (CPMG) of the Maharashtra and Goa Circle.

But this move (delivering e-challans through speed post) will put additional financial burden on the police department's budget. Therefore, the traffic police alone will not be able to go ahead with the proposal," Agrawal said.

The official suggested that to overcome the financial burden, the speed post cost could be recovered from offenders themselves.

If e-challans are printed and delivered at violators address with an acknowledgement receipt, it will ensure offenders pay the fine and police get their rightful revenue, he said, "this will also sending a message to motorists to follow traffic rules." With a view to digitise the entire process of recovering fines from road rule violators, the Mumbai traffic police, in January this year, launched e-challan system.

It set up CCTV cameras across the city to monitor traffic violations. Whenever a motorist broke traffic rules, his/her vehicles number was captured on CCTV cameras.

Later, an SMS was sent about fine to be paid after obtaining the offender's mobile phone registered with the RTO.

According to figures, on an average 5,000 e-challans are issued daily in Mumbai, mostly for over-speeding, signal jumping, not wearing helmets, triple-riding on two wheelers, talking on phone while driving, driving without seat belts and overstepping at zebra crossings.

Source : http://www.newindianexpress.com