The police have introduced a new system to send e-challans automatically to the mobile phones of motorists, whose traffic violations are caught on advanced surveillance cameras. The system was introduced in Anna Nagar and Thirumangalam on a pilot basis, and would later be extended to other parts of the city for effective enforcement, Police Commissioner Shankar Jiwal said.
In 2019, Hyundai Motor India Foundation (HMIF), an arm of Hyundai Motor India Limited, installed 63 highly sophisticated cameras and a fully-equipped monitoring room to support authorities in strengthening road discipline and help reduce traffic violations in the locality.
The cameras were installed at Anna Nagar roundtana, Anna Nagar police station roundtana, Shanthi Colony junction, Estate Road junction and West Depot X 18th Main Road junction. The cameras would be monitored through a separate control room at Anna Nagar roundtana. The traffic police used to send notices or challans manually, asking the vehicle owners to pay a penalty for any violation. Now, the system has been upgraded so that e-challans will be sent automatically to the violators’ mobile phones.
After inaugurating the upgraded Automated Regulation Observation Zone Control Room, Mr. Jiwal said the traffic regulation observation zone, integrated with the National Informatics Centre, which was also linked with Vahan, an integrated nation-wide portal for vehicle registration, would track traffic violations in real time.
The system can currently generate automatic e-challans for speeding, signal, stop line and wrong side violations. The person will first get a notice, following which a challan would be sent directly to their mobile phone.
“In the manual system, personnel used to book 200-250 cases per day in police station limits. The trial run of the new system may lead to the booking of 90,000 to 1 lakh cases. The enforcement level may increase by 300 times. This is a pilot project. We are planning to extend it across the city,” Mr. Jiwal said, adding that they were planning to upgrade the system to detect helmet rule violations and triple riding as well.
He said corporate companies were welcome to sponsor the installation of CCTVs or any other surveillance cameras. He added that when A.K. Viswanathan was the Police Commissioner, more than 1.5 lakh CCTV cameras were installed under the ‘Third Eye Project’.
“Now, we are going to map the GPS locations of all cameras in the city. We will set up a SIM card module, which will send an SMS to the central system in case of any problems,” Mr. Jiwal said.