Puducherry Transport Department to introduce e-challans for traffic violations

Officials of the Transport Department said violators will be able to pay their fines digitally; the point of sale machines are also linked to the centralised database of the Motor Vehicles Department, enabling the police to check for repeat offenders

The Puducherry Transport Department will start issuing e-challans through point of sale (POS) machines instead of manual challans for traffic offenders to pay their fines. The e-challans will be issued by both the Transport Department and the Traffic Police and are expected to be rolled out in the city shortly .

According to a senior official, “The Transport Department has procured 50 POS machines. Of them, as many as 35 machines will be handed over to the Traffic police and the remaining to the enforcement squads of the Motor Vehicles Department (MVD). Offenders will now be asked to make cash payment or swipe their debit/credit cards on the spot for payment of fines for traffic violations including compoundable offences,” he said.

The new devices are technologically more advanced than the ones used by the Traffic police earlier. The Department has added digital payment apps in the payment options, and the offenders can also pay fines by scanning the QR code on the devices, the official said.

Officials of the rank of Assistant Motor Vehicle Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors of Police from the Transport and Police Departments respectively will prosecute the motorists and traffic offenders on the e-challan platform.

The devices are also linked to the Vahan portal, the centralised country-wide database of the Motor Vehicle Department and Regional Transport Offices in the Puducherry database. All offences against motorists will be added to the database enabling blacklisting of vehicles involved in the offence. 

According to a police official, “Apart from enabling cashless payment of fines, the system will also help the personnel check whether any motorist caught violating traffic rules has previous offences lodged against him. The enforcement teams only have to fill the vehicle registration number or the licence details of the driver to get all the details of the vehicle in the POS machine within seconds. If the driving licence of a particular motorist has been suspended, it will reflect in the database.”

The official added, “The software has been developed by the National Informatics Centre and the device has real-time access to the vehicle owner database and driving licence database of all RTOs in the country. Challans can be issued for any vehicle belonging to any State.”