Police gear up to tackle more ‘traffic’ on its site

Mega discounts for pending challans expected to draw more visitors

Telangana Police expect more ‘traffic’ on its echallan website for a month starting Tuesday as their mega discount window shall be opened giving a huge relief to vehicle owners. 

Buoyed by the prospect of recovering fine amounts outstanding on the vehicles for various traffic violations issued in the past couple of years, the police ramped up the network bandwidth of its Internet site to safeguard it from crashing in the event of huge user traffic expected.

Speaking to The Hindu, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Hyderabad, Avula Venkata Ranganath said that they are all geared up for the most happening month and the system capabilities and bandwidth have been raised 10 times than usual. “The fault tolerance has been checked under different scenarios and alternative lines have been kept as a backup in case of a crash,” he said. 

Further, he said that a couple of mirror sites have also been integrated to make the user experience seamless and hassle-free.  The officer clarified that payments shall be made only through their website or at Mee Seva centres. No booths for cash payments were set up, he said. Vehicles owners can also pay through their UPI wallets in addition to debit or credit cards and internet banking. A whopping ₹ 1,750 crore is lying as an outstanding amount to be collected as penalties for more than six crore traffic challans across the State. In Hyderabad police commissionerate alone there are over 1.75 crore unpaid challans with more than ₹ 600 crore as penalties. With discount in place, the State government expects a realisation of anywhere between ₹500 crore and ₹700 crore in its exchequer. Meanwhile, traffic police in three urban commissionerates – Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda – and across the State have been orally instructed to maximise the collection of outstanding fine amounts by intensifying the checking points and make the vehicle owners to clear off their dues.

A  whopping 75 % discount is offered on the outstanding amount for the two and three-wheelers and 50 % for Light Motor Vehicles and Heavy Motor Vehicles. While there is a 90% discount on challans raised over non-wearing of face masks during the pandemic and an 80% discount on challans issued for pushcarts. Even the TSRTC bus drivers, who were slapped with thousands of traffic violation challans, can also heave a sigh of relief as the new offer gives them a steep discount of 70 % on the outstanding amount and were required to pay only 30 %.