Hyderabad: Number plate violators beware!

Hyderabad: The Telangana Traffic Police Department to gearing up to take action on vehicles plying with faulty number plates as the number of wrong-e challans have spiked in the last two months. To escape challans, the vehicular owners are constantly changing numbers plates. Currently, 10 to 15 wrong e-challans were being reported every day, while only three to four were being reported per day in March.

"As per the reports, the vehicular owners are found changing the last or first digit on the number plates. Out of 25,000 challans, we observe at least 450 to 500 reports of wrongly imposed e-challans per month. Approximately, around 1.5 lakh motorists across Hyderabad are using irregular, tricky or faulty number plates. In few situations, motorists are caught for changing their number plates completely with the similar model vehicle and same colour vehicles just to escape e-challans," said Divya Charan, DCP (Traffic), Rachakonda Commissionerate.

On resolving the issue, Narsimha Rao, Inspector (Traffic) and in-charge of e-challan department, said, for wrongly imposed e-challans, vehicle owners have the option of lodging complaints on the website which would be resolved in two to three working days.

"We delete the issued challan only after investigating the complaint thoroughly and found the complainant right. Among every 15 reports on of wrong e-challans, at least 5 to 6 are due to number plate tampering. Hence, our focus is on these faulty number plates, " he added.

Denying the rumour of issuing only one challan on a vehicle per day, Narsimha said, according to the MV Act vehicles can be penalised wherever and whenever they were found violating different traffic norms like pillion rider not wearing helmet, vehicles without mirrors etc on a single day.

"These strict rules are only to save the lives of commuters as in 60 percent of accident cases, the pillion riders have lost their lives for not wearing helmets while the rider escaped with injuries because of helmet. Hence, we suggest to all commuters to follow traffic rules," said K Babu Rao, DCP, Traffic, Cyberabad.

On the other hand, the motorists lodge wrong challan complaints for not only incorrect number plates, but also for issuing double challans on a single day from the same Commissionerate within 4 kms distance at the same time rues commuters.

A commuter Mohammed Iliyas has received two challans for pillion rider not wearing helmet, one at 10:20 am in Madhapur and other at 10: 21 am in Gachibowli. He also received challans for no mirror on the same day and challans for wearing improper/half/non-standard helmet.

"I am ready to pay for challan against pillion rider not wearing helmet, but I request police strike off other challans as they are issued for same violation in different locations on the same day," said Mohammed iliyas, resident of Kothaguda.