E-challan recovery misses target

Officials blame gaps in IT use, delivery of penalty documents

LAHORE:

The e-challaning system, a part of the Intelligent Traffic Management Section of Punjab Safe Cities Authority (PSCA), has been able to recover only 28 per cent of the total dues from e-tickets issued during last four years despite hectic efforts.

Officials of the authority blame. gaps in delivery of the tickets at the violators’ addresses, enforcement and technical knowhow among a large section of the population for the low level of recovery of dues.

Official record shows that under the system as many as Rs2.7 billion worth of e-tickets were issued during last four years.

So far, only Rs900 million has been recovered by the PSCA and traffic police.

An official said the main reason behind the low recovery was flaws in delivery of the challans. He estimated that less than 50% of the challan forms were being delivered to the citizens.

A large number of citizens also lack IT skills and equipment, he pointed out and added that a majority of those who were not delivered the challan in paper form defaulted.

The authorities concerned on the other side say that they have been consistently taking measures to fill the gaps that they have encountered since the implementation of the new system due to departmental challenges.

A number of other departments like excise and Post Office are also involved in the process.

In the first week of March, Pakistan Post and the PSCA signed an agreement for the delivery of e-challans at the doorsteps of citizens.

Punjab Postmaster General Khawaja Imran Raza and PSCA DIG Muhammad Kamran signed the agreement.

Under the agreement, the e-tickets issued by the PSCA were to be delivered by Pakistan Post at the addresses of the violators of traffic rules at addresses registered at the excise and taxation department.

Pakistan Post had to establish a special section for dispatching, monitoring and other matters related to the service.

Pakistan Post had also promised to deliver the e-challans to the rural areas of the province.

Three weeks after the agreement, a pilot project of e-challan was started in four cities of the province, including Lahore.

Under the e-challan mechanism, a team from the traffic headquarters issued penalty tickets to violators on Jail Road digitally on a trial basis.

A mobile application was downloaded to the wardens’ phones and pocket-size printers were provided to them. With the wardens issuing the challan, all the details were transmitted to the headquarters.

Earlier, with an aim to eliminate corruption and modernise the system, the Lahore traffic police had constituted 17 special teams in coordination with the PSCA headquarters with the sole purpose of impounding the e-challan defaultor vehicles plying on roads.

The PSCA had announced a plan to launch the e-challaning in September 2018 after a test-run before starting dispatching the e-challans at the violators’ homes.

An e-challan ticket carries the realtime violation graphics, type and corresponding penalty, as well as the number and history of traffic rule violations

The plan for the system was announced in June 2016, during a meeting chaired by then Punjab Traffic DIG Farooq Mazhar. The meeting had decided to launch a system at par with international standards.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 6^th, 2022.