Hyderabad: Hyderabad Traffic police amassed 70.3 lakh challans as of December 2021. Most of these are related to over speeding and not wearing helmets. The new Joint Commissioner AV Ranganath is planning to employ “modified enforcement” to collect the challans worth Rs 600 crore which are pending since 2014.
Out of those charged for over speeding only 40% of the challans have been cleared. The other 60% are still pending and have added to other violations in the past eight years. The sum of total number of challans as of now is Rs 600 crore.
According to a report by the News Meter, Hyderabad Joint Commissioner Ranganath expressed his wish to employ modified methods to collect the pending challans.
“Since 2014, the number of unpaid challans has piled up to 1.75 crore. The backlog of unpaid fines has reached Rs 600 crore. A lot of fines are compoundable (a case where the enforcement agency and the violator can reach a compromise). The department is studying legal aspects on how to reduce the backlog by getting violators to pay. One of the many strategies is to hold a Lok Adalat in order to facilitate payment. The team is working on ‘modifying’ enforcement strategies,” said the Joint Commissioner.
Ranganath further stressed that people need to realise that Traffic police impose penalties in order to discipline them. The most important issues on the traffic police’s agenda right now is to clear all the pending challans, identifying black spots and preventing accidents.
Among the major challenges faced by the Hyderabad Traffic police as of now are over speeding, accidents and the cancellation or suspension of driving license.
A survey conducted by the traffic police revealed that large number of accident occur during nights between 11 PM and 6 AM. Drunk-driving and over speeding were stated as primary reasons for the accidents. Last year, 1961 accidents were reported in Hyderabad. Out of these 278 accidents were fatal while 2060 people were injured due to accidents, 350 of whom suffered grievous injuries. 620 pedestrians were injured, out of which 86 died.
In terms of license cancellation 25 people got stripped off the licence in 2021. There were 25453 drunken driving cases last year. Those involved in drunk driving have been penalised under section 188 of the Motor Vehicles Act,1988. A jail term of six month with a penalty of Rs 10,000 has been imposed on the offenders.
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