Traffic violators, who are nonetheless law-abiding citizens, cough up around ₹ 15 lakh to ₹ 18 lakh a day in Hyderabad by clearing their pending traffic challans. On a sunny day, the payment of challans crosses even ₹ 20 lakh or more.
Though many clear their pending challans, Hyderabad traffic police are worried about those motorists who never turn up to pay a single challan even after having dozens of violation tickets on their vehicle.
Top on the list of violators includes Kaligotla Krishna Prakash from Old Alwal, who has to pay 136 fines for traffic violations, a total amount of ₹ 31,590. Followed by the owner of a car with the number TS 07 UA 7695, who has to pay 134 traffic challans totalling to ₹ 29,120.
Krishna Prakash’s bike was caught by Narayanaguda traffic police on November 1 at Himayatnagar and seized. When asked if they have a mechanism to collect ‘top’ pending challans, Additional Commissioner of Police (traffic) Anil Kumar said they send regular SMS to the traffic violators to clear the dues . “However, when he/she is caught by team in the concerned police station limits, any vehicle with more than 10 challans would be seized and charged-sheeted,” he said, adding that the owner has to attend the court.
Further, Mr. Anil Kumar said that during non-peak hours, the traffic police visit the parking areas near parks, malls and other public places to check the challans on parked vehicles and seize them. “There are people who had paid ₹ 7.6 lakh for 2,721 tickets,” the top cop said.
But, an exception to this norm are inter-State vehicles plying in the city limits, which are violating traffic rules, but not paying up the challans.
The traffic police said that there are several vehicles from other States, which have a large number of challans to clear, but the authorities fail to contact them due to technical problems. For instance, a Hyundai i10 car with the number MH 14 CK 4374 has 124 overspeeding challans worth ₹ 1.54 lakh and a Hyundai i20 car with number MH 04 ET 2866 with 89 overspeeding/ dangerous driving violation tickets totalling to ₹ 1.26 lakh.
“We don’t get their contact details and on several occasions name of the vehicle owner too,” an official said, adding that most of the vehicles are from Maharashtra, Karnataka and Puducherry.