To recover the amount, MTP intends to send court summons to the offenders, through the post, after getting their details from regional RTOs.
The ambitious e-challan system introduced by Mumbai Traffic Police (MTP) amid much fanfare in December 2016 has cost it Rs 141.93 crore in fines. MTP is owed the mammoth amount by traffic offenders who broke rules between 2017 and November 2018. Before 2017, MTP would collect fines manually in cash and furnish a receipt.
To recover the amount, MTP intends to send court summons to the offenders, through the post, after getting their details from regional RTOs.
Close analysis of the statistics shows that from 2014 till 2016, the number of traffic offences showed a diminishing trend, but the following two years showed an increase. The Traffic police attribute the increase to the installation of CCTV cameras across the city that is synchronised with the e-challan system.
However, statistics for 2017 and 2018 show that the amount of fines recovered has dropped to nearly 45 per cent. In 2017 and 2018, the unpaid cases rose from 13,82,955 to nearly 19,91,387 also the amount of fine collected in 2017 was Rs 39 crores which further dropped to around Rs 24 crores in 2018.
"Since the CCTVs are linked with the e-challan system, there is an increase in the number of cases registered, but since there is no manual collection of fine, recovery has lagged behind," said one police officer.
Amitesh Kumar, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), said, "Manual collection of fine would result in police-public conflict, allegations of corruption and lack of manpower to regulate traffic as officers had to be put on duty to enforce fine collection. The e-challan system was introduced to overcome all these issues."
He says the recovery of fines initially stood at 20 to 21 per cent under the e-challan system and has now increased to 51 per cent.
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