Everything you need to know about Mumbai’s e-challan system

Mumbai police on Tuesday launched a CCTV challan initiative, which would help in issuing fines to road rule violators without traffic police personnel being present on the site.

The first-of-its-kind initiative was inaugurated at the traffic police headquarters in Worli yesterday morning. Going forward, the fourth floor of the traffic police headquarters in Worli will be dedicated to the new initiative.

As a part of the project, about 4,717 Closed Circuit Television cameras (CCTVs) have been installed throughout Mumbai which will record traffic violations, a senior official said.

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Elaborating on the process, he said the traffic violator will receive an SMS along with the evidence of him/her violating traffic rules.

After receiving the challan, motorists can click on the payment link, which will direct them to a payment site. This will enable the motorists to pay their penalties online using their debit and credit cards.

The most common offences, where the CCTV challan system will come in handy, include signal jumping, talking on mobile phone while driving, riding triple seat on a two-wheeler, riding without helmet, speeding, driving without seat belts and overstepping the zebra crossing.

Once implemented, it will reduce the manpower required for fining motorists and help decongest traffic as traffic policemen often have to ask motorists to stop on roadside to explain the offence and hand over the receipt.

At present, the Mumbai traffic police issues about 6,000 challans per day by detecting traffic violations, stopping the offender, persuading them, writing of challans and accepting the fine amount. Maintaining the account is also a time consuming process, the official said.

CCTV challan will also reduce human interference, which at times leads to altercation. It also reduces the time spent by traffic officers on actual regulation duty, he added.

“Around 4,717 cameras have been installed across the city. We have put together a team of 25 constables in our control room who are responsible for generating challans to be sent via SMS,” said Joint Commissioner (Traffic) Milind Bharambe.

Out of the 25 officials, 20 will monitor the CCTVs to catch offenders and 5 will enter details like registration number, location and date of offence into the system to generate a challan.

While spot challans won’t be discontinued, they will become cashless.

“Our field personnel will be equipped with 500 hand-held devices where offenders can pay fines using debit or credit cards. Those who don’t possess plastic money can go to the concerned traffic chowky where an agency will collect fines,” Bharambe added.

Repeat offenders will also be tackled easily under the new implementation.

“If a motorist commits more than three offences, we will request the RTO to suspend his or her licence,” he said.

To make the payment process convenient, the department has also tied up with third party vendors.

“Fines for traffic violations can also be paid at Vodafone’s cash payment points and will be transferred to the traffic police. We are in talks with utility bill payment centres in the city,” Bharambe said.

Since Mumbai police only has mobile number details of 15 lakh vehicle owners, of the total 28 lakh vehicles registered in the city, the one’s whose numbers are not in the database will receive the challan via post.

Meanwhile, officials will continue to add the details of the remaining vehicles.