Erring motorists will no longer be able to use the excuse of lack of lower denomination notes to evade fines. The traffic police, too, will not have to scramble for change when handed a Rs. 2,000 note for a Rs. 150 fine. In six weeks, the Bengaluru traffic police will be armed with 650 hand-held devices to swipe debit/credit cards so that motorists can pay their fines on the spot.
According to a senior police officer, the tenders for the machines have been finalised and the work order for nearly 650 swipe machines have already been issued. “The machines will be integrated with the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). A back-end system is necessary to access the database. The devices used may evolve in the future,” said the officer.
‘Challans to also be issued’
“The machines will have to be connected to the PDA for using data to run the machines. Once the debit/credit card is swiped the motorist will get an alert on his phone. The police will also issue a challan using the printer,” added the officer.
Though the tenders had been issued before the demonetisation process, their arrival is timely, say officials. Over the past few weeks, the traffic police have been facing a hard time collecting fines. With cash not available in most ATM machines, the police had to resort to issuing challans and asking violators to make online payments.
But there have been cases where people simply did not have cash or handed over newly minted Rs. 2,000 notes demanding change.
With both motorists and traffic police hard-pressed for change, senior officials had announced that they will be accepting Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes for some days.
On an average, the traffic police register over five lakh cases every month and collect crores of rupees as fines. Police inspectors claim that the machines will be helpful as they will not have to manage cash.
