Pune Traffic Police Yet To Recover ₹17.53 Crore From 2.33 Lakh E-Challans: RTI

The Pune Traffic Police issued a total of 2.67 lakh e-challans in 2024. However, it is yet to recover ₹17.53 crore from 2.33 lakh e-challans, an RTI has revealed.

Nachiket Deshpande, a banker by profession, who filed the RTI, said the police should list out the pending cases in order of outstanding amounts and take stepwise measures to recover the fines. "The police should first start with soft recovery through calls and then engage recovery agents if required. If this fails, the violators should be taken to court," he added. "Some out-of-the-box thinking can also be considered. For example, the traffic police could provide access to e-challan data to fuel stations, and they should refuse fuel if more than five e-challans are pending," Deshpande further said.

"The traffic police should link e-challans to vehicle registration and licence renewal. If the e-challan remains unpaid, the vehicle should not be allowed to be re-registered or the owner's driving licence should be suspended until it is cleared. Additionally, PUC renewal or insurance processing should not be allowed until all fines are paid. Furthermore, the police should conduct door-to-door recovery drives in collaboration with the RTO," said Ninaad Pai, a software engineer, who suggested Deshpande file the RTI.

Meanwhile, the RTI also stated that there are 1,341 traffic monitoring cameras in Pune city, and all of them are functional. However, Pai said this seems "highly questionable". "If they were truly functional, traffic violations wouldn't be as rampant. People openly break rules — jumping signals, driving on the wrong side and riding without helmets — without any fear of fines. The traffic situation has only worsened over the years," he added. On the other hand, Deshpande said, "The information has to be correct as it comes from the authorised information officer of the police department."