LAHORE: The Punjab Safe City Authority (PSCA) is trying to make it convenient for the citizens to pay their e-challans online while work is continuing on designing a smartphone app in coordination with the State Bank of Pakistan and the Punjab government.

“It will enable the citizen to pay e-challan through debit cards, one-link, Easypaisa, jazz cash etc,” stated (PSCA) Chief Operating Officer Akbar Nasir while talking to the media here on Thursday.

He said the PSCA had sent 1,700,944 e-challans in the first financial year and Rs168m were submitted to the national exchequer as e-challan fine for traffic violations.

“An effective and efficient traffic management system along with electronic challans has helped reduce fatal traffic accident by 70pc in the first year.”

Mr Khan added the PSCA was also working on some legal amendments on increasing penalty of e-challan after the due date and some necessary amendments to the Motor Vehicle Ordinance 1965 were awaited for the last 18 months.

It is pertinent to mention that the PSCA is also introducing penalty point deduction system so that the habitual violators of traffic laws will end up with the cancellation of their traffic license.

Mr Khan said a joint study carried out by the Punjab Safe City Authority (PSCA) and a senior professor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMs) had declared the e-challans project as a game-changer in addressing the chronic traffic issues of the provincial capital in a very short time.

According to the study, he added, the PSCA had helped save around Rs24bn in the nine months of the first financial year of the project.

According to the earlier research conducted by LUMS Prof and economist Syed Muhammad Hassan before launch of the PSCA, approximately Rs94bn were spent every year on the city’s roads due to traffic congestion before the commencement of e-challan.

However, the latest research shows that Rs24bn were saved through an effective traffic management and PSCA E-Challan mechanism, Mr Akbar added.

He said the authority had identified 1,121 persons in the city who were virtually owners of several hundred vehicles each.

“We have shared this data with the FBR for proper financial enquiry and were bringing them in the tax net,” he said and added that this crime was going unchecked for years.

Mr Khan said the PSCA had taken action against 700 clone vehicles which were identified through e-challans while thousands of vehicles were also identified through surveillance cameras which were using fake number plates, he added.

He said the PSCA was helping excise and taxation department update the vehicle ownership details on a regular basis.

“It is also helping the authorities concerned restrict transfer of vehicle on open letter and restricting the registration of numerous vehicles against one CINC. Traffic police shall take necessary action against e-challan defaulters whereas the E& T department shall take action against non-standard number plates being used in the province.”

The PSCA has helped excise, taxation and narcotics control departments in noting the exact addressed of numerous vehicle owners.

“There data is being rectified with the authority’s help and this process will continue,” Akbar Nasir said.

He also mentioned that the motorcyclists were more used to in violation of traffic laws and their behaviour needed to be changed to avoid any further strict disciplinary action. He informed that more than 90pc of surveillance cameras were operational in the city which were helping reduce crime rate and Lahore police had recommended that more cameras be installed in the city.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2019