Traffic police call up offenders, collect ₹2 crore pending fine

Over ₹80 lakh was collected from those penalised for drunken driving

The Chennai City Traffic Police has collected a fine of nearly ₹2 crore from traffic violators in one month through follow up by the call centre. The penalty was collected in 72,205 cases which had been pending since March 2019.

A senior official said since the introduction of cashless e-challan system in March 2018, thousands of traffic violation cases had been pending. “Though initially the offenders complied with the rules, over the years thousands of cases became backlog. To ensure that the penalty was collected, Commissioner Shankar Jiwal launched 12 call centres last month through which the traffic police followed up by making calls and sending messages to the individuals concerned informing them about the pending cases,” he said.

Mr. Jiwal convened a meeting last week to get an update on the functioning of the call centres. It was found that the traffic police had collected ₹1.95 crore from 72,205 traffic cases filed against the violators.

A major part of the fine amount was collected from those who were caught in drunken driving cases. Some of the offendes had to pay ₹10,000 each. The fine amount against those who indulged in drunken driving alone totalled ₹80.74 lakh, the police added.