Bengaluru: Paying traffic fine through Digital Money proved a success

The Digital Money introduced by the Traffic Department has turned out to be a grand success. Police collected over Rs 45 lakhs in 17 days, by card swiping by defaulters. It took the department around 7 months to prepare the device. 38 stations collected Rs 45,15,900 in fines from 18212 vehicles in 38610 incidents. PDA comes with an inbuilt camera that is handy to record any inappropriate behaviour.

It was a common practice for traffic violators caught by the police to say they don’t have cash on the person and try to escape paying fine. Not anymore.  The Digital Money introduced by the Traffic Department has turned out to be a grand success collecting over Rs 45 lakhs in 17 days, reported Kannada Prabha.

 In just 17 days after introducing the Digital Money, the government has collected over Rs 45 lakhs in fines for traffic violation, by people using their credit and debit cards.

The Traffic Department approved the Digital Money which evades several problems faced by the department earlier. It took the department around 7 months to prepare the device. In the East, West and North zones as many as 38 stations collected Rs 45,15,900 in fines from 18212 vehicles in 38610 incidents, senior officers informed Kannada Prabha.

The Demonitisation had affected collection of fines adversely.  Hence the police staff are happy about the new instrument. Before this Black Berries were given to traffic police. Now it has been replaced by Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) with swiping facility.  The public also are responding well to swiping, said the officials.

Added to this the PDA comes with an inbuilt camera that is handy to record any inappropriate behaviour like drunken driving, rowdism, signal jumping, treble riding, riding without helmet and wrong parking.  R Hitendra, Additional Traffic Commissioner said PDA has received good response from public and the department, as it makes the legal action less cumbersome.