Chandigarh Traffic Police Struggles to Recover ₹102 Crore in Unpaid Fines from Violators
In response to Chandigarh Congress MP Manish Tewari's query, Union minister of state for home affairs Nityanand Rai provided statistics showing total fines imposed during this period amounted to ₹ 221.3 crore, with ₹ 119.1 crore collected and ₹ 102.2 crore remaining unpaid until Dec 2024.
As per the figures, the Chandigarh traffic police issued 9.9 lakh challans in 2024 and 9.9 lakh traffic challans in 2023, a significant rise from 6 lakh in 2022, 2.4 lakh in 2021, and 1.8 lakh in 2020.
Traffic penalties in Chandigarh increased substantially over five years, particularly after implementing AI-enabled enforcement systems, according to data presented in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. The statistics indicate that
Intelligent Traffic Management Systems
(ITMS) using AI technology issued the vast majority of penalties — 8.4 lakh in 2024, whilst traffic officers manually issued 1.4 lakh. Similarly, in 2023, ITMS generated 8.9 lakh penalties, compared to 1 lakh issued through manual enforcement. Data shows 4.8 lakh challans were issued to motorists through ITMS and 1.2 lakh challans issued manually in 2022. In 2021, 1 lakh challans were issued through ITMS while 1.3 lakh traffic challans were issued by police officials. However, only 78,000 challans were issued through ITMS and 1 lakh traffic challans were issued manually in 2020.
However, this year, the Chandigarh traffic police issued a total of 398,544 challans for 427,783 traffic violations through CCTV cameras installed under the smart city project, manually, and from pictures of violations uploaded on the social media page of the traffic police between Jan 1, 2025, and May 31, 2025, in the city. Despite several measures taken to reduce the number of unpaid traffic challans by the UT traffic police department, the pendency of traffic challans reached 20.2 lakh by May 31, 2025.
Traffic police officials warned that unpaid challans would lead to the cancellation of both driving licences and vehicle registration certificates. Data shows that fifty percent of total challans were issued for red light jumping in the city in five months. The traffic police issued a total of 203,459 challans for jumping red lights in different parts of the city until May this year.
After red light violations, the maximum number of motorists were challaned for driving beyond permissible speed limits in the city. The traffic police issued a total of 49,426 challans for overspeeding in the city in five months. As many as 51,666 slips were issued for violating stop and zebra lines at different traffic light points in the city. Traffic cops also issued 21,318 challans to auto rickshaws, taxis, and buses for carrying more passengers than authorised in permit or registration certificates this year until May 31.
After issuing challans, traffic police inform the violators about the same through SMS. If people don't receive SMS, motorists can check challans pending against them on Chandigarh police's official website. People can also pay their fines at traffic police lines in Sector 29, and people reach courts and Lok Adalats to pay fines for their traffic challans.
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