Fear drives defaulters to pay fines
Over 2 years, traffic police issued over 35 lakh e-challans but few bothered to pay fines
Hyderabad: After the traffic police announced that it would chargesheet those who had not paid their penalties, the counters have not stopped ringing in Hyderabad and Cyberabad.
About 100 motorists with a large number of unpaid challans — some of them having up to 100 pending fines — have paid up as per the traffic police.
The traffic police had said in December last that those dodging fines would get a jail term.
Over the last three years, traffic police has issued over 35 lakh e-challans but few bothered to pay the fines. To prevent corruption, the police started contact-less challans were introduced but the motorists still did not pay up.
The Hyderabad Traffic Police recorded 1.91 lakh payments in February, up from 1.1 lakh in November last.
The Cyberabad traffic police has recorded a jump of payments from roughly 6,000 per month to 40,000 in the three months since December, on average.
"The payments have increased gradually over the last two months, both due to the announcement that violators to be chargesheeted as well as the cashless payment mode becoming easier,” said additional commissioner of police (traffic) Hyderabad, Jitender.
He said the challan amount collected from traffic rule violaters in February was Rs 3.5 crore. Just two months before that, the collection stood at just Rs 1.8 crore. The 1.91 lakh motorists who paid for their rule violants, around 50,000 were autorickshaw drivers.
Cops to charge 500 from today
Over 500 traffic penalty defaulters will be taken to court from Monday. These defaulters had ignored the traffic police notices that were served in January. Under the enhanced enforcement of rules, defaulters could land in jail. After getting the notice, the defaulter gets a week to pay the fine. Those who do not comply will be chargesheeted.
‘We have issued notices to about 10,000 violators in three months. Most of them have paid the challans. Chargesheets have been prepared for 500 violators who have not responded,” said additional CP (traffic), Jitender.