The Mumbai traffic authorities on Wednesday revealed that Mumbaikars owe a total of more than Rs 418 crores to the Maharashtra government for allegedly violating various traffic rules. The officials claim that they have set up different measures to recover the fine, with the most recent one being the door-to-door collection.
An official said that the e-challan system was started with an ambition to bring transparency and curb corruption in the police force, for which cashless payments were important.
However, the traffic authorities added that they had to do away with the idea, owing to the increasing number of pending e-challans day by day. With more than Rs 418 crores left to recover, they had to resort to the measure of accepting cash payments since the start of the year 2021.
An official further revealed that they had sought permission from the state government before starting the cash payment.
On the other hand, the authorities recently started going door-to-door to collect pending fines. “We have been shortlisting the names of the people who owe more than Rs 5,000 as fines, and accordingly, we have been sending personnel to their respective houses,” said an official. “And if the violator refuses to pay the fine, then we issue a notice and ask them to present themselves in court for violating multiple traffic norms,” the official added.
