Now ‘frequent’ traffic violators in Chennai will get calls from police  

Traffic call centres established in places in city

The police department has introduced ‘traffic call centres’ in 10 places in the city. The personnel from the call centres will hereafter call the motorists on their mobile numbers and inform them of the pending e-challans.

The Greater Chennai Traffic Police implemented the cashless e-challan payment system on May 10, 2018 to enable motorists to pay the spot fine through various digital modes of payments.

Under this system, the violators can pay the fine through credit/debit card on the spot or later through online banking, digital wallet, TN E-Sevai centers, post offices or in the court. Initially when this system was introduced, 91.7% of the violators paid the fine through various modes. At present, there is a rising trend among the motorists not to remit the fine amounts for the pending e-challans.

Chennai City Police Commissioner Shankar Jiwal on Monday inaugurated a traffic police call centre at Vepery police station and nine other centres also have been functioning in the city in order to facilitate the motorists to get information on the pending e-challans against them/their vehicles.

Mr. Jiwal said, “Traffic police personnel are issuing at least 10,000 challans per day in the city for traffic violations. In addition to that, more challans are issued in the Traffic Regulation Observed Zone (TROZ) in Anna Nagar and automatic number plate recognition cameras have been installed in 12 locations to capture the driving in the wrong direction. Once it is automated, the issuance of challans will be go up. There are chances that one lakh challans per day will be generated per day. After the issuance of challans, the effectiveness is very important.”

He said the department had prepared a list of vehicles with more than five challans. The call centres would send bulk SMS on the pending challans to the motorists and also provide information on fine amounts to the public over phone and in person. “We will look for the effectiveness of the system for 15 days and then increase the compliance level,” said Mr. Jiwal.

The City Police Commissioner also said more automation would be introduced as far as possible on a few stretches. He added CCTV cameras which went into disuse for the last two years were being rectified and funds were allocated towards the repair.