There was always anecdotal evidence that Indians love a good discount. Now we have empirical evidence, thanks to Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP) — its 50 percent discount offer to clear pending traffic fines has been a thumping success.
So successful, in fact, that the BTP may soon extend its 50-percent discount offer.
Witnessing the overwhelming response to the scheme across the capital of Karnataka, the BTP has now written to the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority (KSLSA) requesting a possible extension of two weeks.
“We have written to the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority to consider the National Lok Adalat for a period of another two weeks so that the traffic police could compound another 70 lakh pending traffic violations and recover the rest of the pending dues,” BTP sources told South First.
“But this would be possible only after the Aero-India show is over,” the sources added.
Between 3 February — when the scheme began — and 11 February of the Karnataka government’s offer of a 50 percent discount on pending traffic fines across the state, the cash that flowed into the treasury was around ₹123 crore. The exact amount being ₹1,23,62,95,611.
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Some fine numbers
A total of 42 lakh (42,14,849) traffic violations were compounded across the state during this period, the bulk of them in the state capital.
In Bengaluru alone, the number of cases compounded was 41,20,626, with the traffic police recovering fines amounting to ₹120 crore (₹1,20,76,40,161, to be precise).
Around ₹2.87 crore in the way of pending traffic fines came in from the rest of the state, where cops compounded 94,223 cases.
It may be noted, however, that this is still just a little over 20 percent of the total of ₹530 crore pending in terms of fines across the state of Karnataka.
This time, the Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) — handheld devices carried by traffic cops who collected fines across the city traffic police stations — resulted in the highest recovery of pending traffic dues: ₹52.9 crore through the compounding of 19,28,920 cases.
The recovery of pending traffic violation fines that came through the digital payment gateway transactions amounted to ₹51.5 crore (₹51,47,77,641), compounding 15,50,897 cases.
The Traffic Management Centre (TMC) — set up for people to come in person — managed to collect ₹19,14,000 by closing 7,377 pending cases, while the citizen service centre, Bangalore-One, saw people paying fines to the tune of ₹16,23,75,700, compounding 6,33,432 pending cases.
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The scheme
The Karnataka government offered a 50 percent discount to all citizens of the state on all pending traffic violation penalties as a one-time settlement offer from 3 February to 11 February.
The decision came in the wake of a resolution passed by the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority on 27 January requesting the State Transport Department to facilitate “justice for all” with regard to traffic fines.
According to police sources, around ₹530 crore was due in pending fines from traffic offenders across the state when the 50 percent discount offer was made, of which ₹500 crore is pending from Bengaluru alone.
All the other districts of the states account for the remaining ₹30 crore.
