From July 3, traffic violation fines to be paid via cards only

CHANDIGARH: From July 3, you will have to pay the fine for a traffic violation from your credit or debit card only at the spot and need not stand for hours in queues at traffic lines in Sector 29.
UT administrator V P Singh Badnore will launch e-challaning service on Friday, nine years after police had initiated the project for compoundable offences like riding without helmet, triple riding, wrong parking, not wearing seat belt and zebra line violations in 2011. In the second phase, payments through UPI would be accepted, cops said.
For drunken driving, red light jumping, driving while using mobile phone and overspeeding, there will be no option for on-the-spot payment because cops have to seize the driving licence and send it to the court.
At present, traffic violator’s documents are seized and cops do not accept penalties in cash.
All traffic cops will have e-challan devices having in-built facilities for making online payment with debit or credit cards. These devices will also have a history of challans pertaining to the offending vehicles with their payment status. The traffic police have procured around 150 e-challaning devices.
These hand-held devices are connected to the Chandigarh RLA (registration and licensing authority) and traffic police server. Information of previous offences will also be mentioned on the traffic ticket.
Last year, the police department had conducted a training programme for traffic police and started uploading information regarding challans, offences and their fee on the devices.
Cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Hyderabad and even some in Punjab have already introduced e-challaning system.
Police had introduced e-payment of fines for traffic violation information slip challans sent on the postal address of violators.