Chennai: Signalling the transition towards cashless payments post-demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, sources from the Traffic Enforcement Wing of the city police revealed that plans were afoot to purchase Electronic Data Capturing Machines (EDCMs) and to tie up with banks as Point-of-Sale (PoS). The city’s traffic enforcement wing, which has altogether 102 units, had been booking nearly 6,000 cases per day from nearly 300 vehicle check points across the city. The police had gone soft on the traffic violators due to the scarcity of valid tenders and the number of cases being booked was halved in the past two weeks.
The issue came up for deliberation at a recent meeting chaired by the city police commissioner S. George and the idea to purchase EDCMs was pitched, which was accepted and is being processed. “Yes, we have the nod from the top brass for the purchase EDCMs. We are in talks with the banks to provision the PoS service, and it had been accepted in principle. However, we are yet to decide on the numbers,” said a senior police official.
The city police are also involved in the process of verification for the provision of the PoS service by banks. Another official hinted that they might cover every alternate vehicle check points with the EDCMs so as to reduce the dependence on cash. The induction of the devices will see hassle-free collection of fines, while the collected money will be directly credited to the account maintained by the city police.
