Online challans were introduced as a measure to ease the inconvenience of people, however, the system has its own set of perils. With challans going digital,vehicle owners fail to pay traffic fines even months after being issued challans. This leads to multiple penalties invoked on a single vehicle.
Gurugram Traffic Police has come up with new guidelines to tackle this challenge. According to an order issued by the traffic police a few days ago, The vehicle of a person who fails to pay a fine within 90 days of being issued a challan in Gurugram will be detained. This development was confirmed by DCP Traffic, Gurgram, Virender Vij.
In an interaction with traffic police officials, Vij said that all officials will inform people in their respective jurisdictions that any driver who has been challaned for disobeying traffic rules is required to pay the fine within 90 days. On average, around 4,500 traffic challans are issued daily by Gurugram traffic officials. Around two-thirds of the challans are issued via a network of cameras whereas the rest of them are issued manually by traffic police officials.
“During re-checking of vehicles, if the challan payment is found outstanding after 90 days, the vehicle can be detained under Section 167(8) of the Motor Vehicle Act. The last date for payment of all past outstanding challans has been set as 10.02.2025. Therefore, people are advised to clear their outstanding challans before 10.02.2025,” said DCP Vij.
Online Challan: How does it work?
The cameras detecting the violation on the roads alert officials at the Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) of GMDA. The concerned officials check the footage and approve the automatic online challans before putting it against the particular vehicle owner. In the online challan system, the fine amounts keep adding against a vehicle registration number.
As of now, there is no mechanism in place where the pending challan dues are cleared within a specified period of time. However, the vehicle cannot be transferred to another owner or another RTO before clearing the dues impending on the current registration number.
With inputs from PTI
