Paying traffic challans uphill task

Amit Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 12

Paying challan at the Traffic Lines in Sector 29 is an uphill task. With a single window for men, women and senior citizens to pay the fine, people end up in long queues and have to wait for over an hour.

Interestingly, the challan branch was revamped in 2015 and the payment counters were increased from two to seven. Despite this, only a single counter is used to make the payments.

The motorists who get challaned first have to go to the ill-ventilated hall at the Traffic Lines and submit the challan there to get it numbered. A traffic cop sitting at the hall collects all challans and puts a number on these. In a bid to avoid a rush at the payment counter, the cop returns the challans to people in small batches to avoid longer queues. As a result, people have to wait for their turn to get the numbered challans.

The ordeal does not end here as after waiting in the hall for an average of 45 minutes, people take their challans and then have to wait in a queue at the payment window that moves at a snail’s pace.

With only one payment counter, people have to spend nearly the same time in the queue for their turn.

Manpreet Singh, a city resident, said the UT police needed to streamline the process to avoid harassment of people. “There should be multiple payment counters so that people don’t have to wait in long queues, which leads to harassment,” he said.

There are many people who use their links in the Police Department to get a number on the challan out of turn and get it paid without bothering to stand in a queue.

SSP (Traffic) Shashank Anand said the traffic wing was steadily moving towards the e-challan system, which would have the option of on-the-spot digital payment. “It would also modernise the challan branch for which a new hardware was being procured,” the SSP said.

On-the-spot payment was allowed earlier 

Earlier, the traffic police had a provision for on-the-spot cash payment for traffic violations. However, it was recently discontinued as it was difficult to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate payments on the spot.