2nd run of waiver scheme sees significantly better response

Kolkata: More than 1.5 lakh cases have been disposed of in the past four days, after the traffic fine waiver scheme was introduced for the second time.

According to a senior official of Kolkata Police, till Wednesday evening around Rs one crore has been realised as fines, which was far more than was expected. The data shows that a good number of private car owners are availing the waiver scheme compared to others. This apart, a large number of two-wheeler owners are also submitting the pending fines in order to dispose of the pending cases by paying half the actual fine amount.

However, people were told that the seizure cases which have been sent to court for deciding the fine amount, cannot be settled under this waiver scheme. Confusion has cropped up regarding the compound cases which are also sent to court after 15 days from the date of prosecution. On Wednesday, Joint Commissioner of Police, Traffic, Pandey Santosh said: "Only the cases which are pending in the traffic guards can be settled. If the case documents along with the compound slip has been sent to court, the case cannot be disposed of under the waiver scheme."

Sources informed that compared to the last phase of waiver scheme by Kolkata Police, response from the bus owners are better this year. Several bus owners have already disposed of many cases which had been pending for several years.

Pandey further informed that before commencing the waiver scheme, his department has informed all concerned authorities like Ola, Uber, bus syndicates and luxury taxi associations, to inform them about the scheme. The organisations have been asked to inform the drivers.