KARACHI: Serious flaws continue to surface in Karachi’s electronic traffic challan (e-challan) system, with motorists reporting repeated and erroneous fines. The latest case involves a driver who was fined five times in a single day for allegedly not wearing a seat belt.
According to details, the motorist received three fines on the Expressway and Maripur Road, while two were issued near Hassan Square. Records show that all five challans were issued on October 30, three around noon and two again around midnight at nearly the same locations.
The affected driver, who works in the transport sector, has appealed to authorities to rectify what he termed “an injustice,” saying the system’s technical faults are unfairly penalizing citizens.
This is not the first incident exposing issues in Karachi’s e-challan mechanism. On October 31, a motorcycle that had been stolen four years ago in the Tariq Road area was issued a new e-challan for a traffic violation. The owner, who had filed a theft report in 2020 at Tipu Sultan Police Station, said the vehicle was never recovered.
In another case, a citizen was wrongly fined on October 27 for riding without a helmet in Clifton, despite claiming he was at home in Scheme 33 at the time.
Authorities have yet to respond to the growing number of complaints about duplicate and mismatched challans.
Interestingly, despite a hue and cry among the public over new e-challan system in Karachi, no one is bothering to overcome this unwanted trouble for the people in the city, who are travelling through roads in deteriorated conditions.
