In a first, Kovai cops to go digital in collecting fines

The traffic police will be equipped to collect fine using the debit and credit cards of violators as the Coimbatore City Police will soon begin collecting fine in the cashless mode, for the first time in the state. 

On an average the city traffic police register 600 to 750 cases a day. This goes up to 900 to 1,000 cases in the weekend when the local law and order police are also roped in to book violators. 

In case of a special drive 1,400 to 1,500 cases are the registered in a day. 

As of now, the fine for not wearing helmet is Rs 100, Rs 300 for rash and negligent driving and driving without a helmet, Rs 500 for over speeding and Rs 1,000 for using mobile phone while driving. Among other violations these are the cases that are predominantly registered by the police and a spot fine is collected for the same. 

Violators as well as the police face difficulty due to this as not all violators had change and gave a Rs 500 or Rs 1,000 note to the police officer, who in turn did not have change. On the other hand, the police came across many persons claiming that they have debit and credit cards, forcing the policeman to wait till the violators withdrew money and came back. 

Last month the police let lose violators, as they were already struggling due to demonetisation. With more Rs 2,000 notes coming to circulation, the police had a tough time accepting it. 

Deputy Commissioner of Police (DC), for Traffic, Saravanan told DT Next that after discussion, Coimbatore city was handpicked for the pilot project by the office of the Director General of Police, Chennai, about a month ago. With technical support from HDFC Bank the project was to kick start before demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currencies. 

“But demonetisation left bankers became busy. We will discuss with the bank in the third week of this month on implanting cashless fine collection mode,” the DC said and added that cashless fine mode would not be tough to implement as the traffic police officers entitled to collect fines were provided with e-challan machines three years ago. 

“In the cashless mode, we expect better enforcement as there won’t be problem in handling change,” DC Saravanan said.