Prayagraj: Traffic awareness drives lead to drop in e-challans

PRAYAGRAJ: Call it the impact of rising traffic safety awareness among commuters or fear of being challaned, the Sangam city has recorded a sharp decline in the number of e-challans this year as compared to 2021.
Between January 1 and September 15 this year around 1,80, 101 e-challans were issued to violators by the traffic police authorities while the figure of e-challans in 2021 stood at 3,52,431.
The district traffic police authorities claimed that the number of challans in 2020 and 2021 stood at 1,39,880 and 3,31,840, respectively.
The officials admitted that there has been around 50% decline in e-challans issued this year. The traffic police authorities had placed Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras at seven prominent crossings to catch traffic violators since 2020 and installed detector lens including red light violation detector at 30 other crossings. These cameras are helping the police identify commuters violating traffic signals, speed limits, and other norms and suitably penalise them.
Interestingly, the figures of e-challan has not only declined in Prayagraj district but also neighbouring districts including Kaushambi, Pratapgarh and Fatehpur. Pratapgarh police recorded 45,586 e-challans while in Fatehpur and Kaushambi 36,680 and 3,478 e-challan were issued respectively this year.
There has been a major decline in Kaushambi district where 2022 recorded 3,478 e-challan and 52,546 e-challan in 2021.IG (Prayagraj range) Rakesh Singh told TOI, “Commuters are sincerely following traffic rules and regulations as a result, there has been sharp decline in the number of e-challans.” He also added, “Adherence to traffic rules and regulation has also brought around 6% decline in the number of road accidents this year in comparison to previous year”.