VIJAYAWADA: Twenty six-year-old Durga Prasad (name changed) lives with his parents at Ramavarappadu and owns a Volkswagen. He recently went to a second-hand car showroom as he wanted to sell his four-wheeler to clear his loans.
When his vehicle registration number was cross-checked on apechallan.org, Prasad realised that payment of two challans was still pending. Much to his shock, he realised that one of the challans, for ‘not wearing seat belt’, was issued when he was not even driving.
“In the picture uploaded on the website, I am seen standing just beside my car with its door open. How can they call it a violation when there is no person on the driver seat?”
He said he was wrongfully penalised for another violation, too. “They issued another ticket on my car for wrongful parking. I parked my car in front of my uncle’s house where there were no sign boards. There was no violation there,” Prasad added.
Similar is the case of a private employee, Ramana Murthy (name changed). Three challans for traffic violations were slapped on his car four years ago came as a shock to him. Murthy said he was in Odisha four years ago and never visited Vijayawada in the period when the challans were issued.
Just like Prasad and Murthy, there are hundreds of vehicle owners in the city who have complained of wrong traffic challans.
While some approached the police directly, others have vented their ire on social media and demanded cancellation of the invoices issued to them.
ADCP (Traffic) T Sarkar admitted that there were faults in the system, and many of the wrong challans were due to errors while uploading them on the website.
“We are getting a lot of complaints and we are working to resolve them. Also, vehicle owners can submit their challan numbers to us for verification,” he added.