Pilot project: Traffic cops in city to prosecute vehicles online

kolkata: Kolkata traffic police will start a pilot project soon to prosecute vehicles online. No physical documents related to the vehicles will be seized.

According to sources, with this new process, documents like driving license, registration certificate, pollution certificate, insurance and other tax related documents can be locked digitally during prosecution for violating traffic rules.

Though all the documents related to vehicles are available on the m-parivahan and Digilocker application, it is not acceptable in Bengal as a separate notification is mandatory on behalf of the state Transport department.

People are often found not carrying the physical copies of the documents.

When the vehicle drivers or owners are stopped for violating traffic norms, police officers become helpless.

If the person fails to pay the fine on the spot, the only way left for the police is to seize the vehicle.

To ease this problem, Kolkata Police was working with the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to develop a platform for prosecuting traffic rules violators digitally.

In some states, this method has been implemented. The NIC has developed an application styled as 'E-challan' where database of Sarathi and Vahan has been incorporated. Joint Commissioner of Police, Traffic, Santosh Pandey informed that in this new method, traffic police officers can check all the vehicle-related documents online.

Police can also prosecute the offender by locking one of the documents digitally which will be treated as seized.

If the offender does not pay the fine amount, then it will be kept locked until he or she clears the dues. If the person is again caught violating traffic norms, police officers can see the document has been locked already for traffic rules violation.

"This new method will ease several problems like carrying documents or leaving the document with the police if anybody fails to pay the fine on the spot. The payment can be made online and the digitally seized document will be unlocked through the application as soon as the fine amount gets realised. This is a pilot project, which will start soon," said Pandey.