Traffic police amass Rs 275 crore on pending challans

Hyderabad: As much as Rs 275 crore was collected via various online payment gateways by the Hyderabad traffic police in March so far during their instalment challans drive. Merchant application Paytm alone helped the cops mop up Rs 60 crore, officials claimed. 

“We are clearing 25 challans per second on an average,” said Hyderabad traffic joint commissioner A.V. Ranganath. He said they had received 2.5 crores of challans amounting to Rs 800 crores. “However, after applying the discount, the total came down to Rs 275 crore. We are seeing a huge rush of violators who line up to clear their challans,” he said, adding that 99.9 per cent of challans were cleared online, thanks to the technology. 

Hyderabad traffic police ran a month-long campaign offering discounts up to 75 per cent on pending challans, which was made easy with convenient payment methods offered by merchant applications. 

Amount collected through Telangana e-challan facility through Paytm platforms stood at over Rs 60 crore, a Paytm spokesperson said.

Paytm was roped in by the city’s traffic police department to tackle a massive surge in volumes of e-challan payments. This was after Hyderabad police commissioner C.V. Anand announced a month-long campaign offering discounts up to 75 per cent on pending challans.