It was started as a pilot initiative on The Mall, and after evaluating its success, it will be gradually expanded to the rest of the city.
According to Dr. Assad Malhi, the busiest thoroughfare in the province capital, The Mall 1, The Mall 2, and The Mall 3, were the primary targets of the digital challaning.
He claimed that the use of digital challans would end complaints about phoney and fraudulent challans and guarantee transparency.
In this regard, he stated, a specifically created App has been downloaded on the traffic wardens’ smartphones, and the general public would receive a challan message.
“All the information will be auto-filled by entering the vehicle number or ID card on the App,” Dr. Assad stated.
He said that numerous government departments have been connected to or associated with the digital mobile phone app.
They comprised the department of excise and taxation, the police crime record office, the anti-vehicle lifting squad, the route permit department, and the database management for fitness certificates.
“Most crucially, the Punjab police would be able to access the [criminal] record of the drivers and the vehicles,” he said of the new computerised traffic police system.
According to the CTO of Lahore, the wardens would have access to a traffic violator’s criminal history upon entering their national identity card.
According to Dr. Assad, “if a warden determines the traffic violation has a criminal history, he/she will promptly notify the police to have him/her detained from the scene.”
He added that the recently announced system would also be useful in future budget reduction as the proper deployment of the digital system would assist reduce the crime.
He cited an example in which the Punjab government incurred significant costs each year for the printing of the challan books.
Now the budget for the challan books won’t need to be set aside, he said.
Now the budget for the challan books won’t need to be set aside, he said.
The Punjab government allocated Rs 12 million on average each year under the heading of printing challan booklets for Lahore only.
The government was paying an average of Rs32 million annually for expenses in five main cities, including Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan, and Gujranwala, according to the CTO.
In response to a query, he stated that the province’s numerous districts had already implemented the digital challan system.
