PATNA: Union minister and Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan had to face legal action for crossing the legal speed limit on a National Highway in Bihar.
The car carrying Paswan was issued an e-challan for violating the traffic rule by crossing the legal speed limit while travelling from his Lok Sabha constituency Hajipur to Motihari in East Champaran district.
Chirag was scheduled to participate in a programme in Motihari. Officials in the state transport department said that the union minister’s car was found overspeeding through the newly installed e-detection system at a toll plaza in the state.
The message about violation of speed limit was sent to the LJP (RV) leader on his mobile phone number. He has been slapped with a penalty of Rs.2,000 for violating the traffic rule.
Chirag is not an isolated case. Officials of the state transport department and traffic police revealed that more than 16,700 e-challans worth Rs.9.49 crore were issued in a week from August 7 to 15 through the new e-detection system in the state.
Out of the total 16,755 e-challans, 7,079 e-challans were issued to vehicles registered in Bihar, while 9,676 challans were issued to vehicles registered in other states. Over 12,000 vehicles have been issued e-challans in the last 20 days alone.
The Bihar government has installed e-detection system at all the toll plazas of the state which detects traffic violations by motorists and automatically issues e-challans. State transport secretary Sanjay Agarwal made this announcement in April this year.
The department officials said that high resolution CCTV cameras have been installed at 32 toll plazas. As soon as e-challan is issued, the confirmation message is automatically sent on the registered mobile number if the vehicle is caught violating traffic rules like fitness, pollution, insurance or overspeeding, lack of seat belt.