KARACHI – The city’s newly implemented e-challan system appeared to spiral out of control when a Karachi resident received five separate traffic fines in a single day, prompting authorities to review the glitch.
The citizen said that identified as Hakeemullah, all five e-challans were issued on October 30. Three of them were recorded at the same location in Mauripur at 12:03pm, while the remaining two were issued at Hassan Square just 10 minutes later, at 12:13 pm All fines were imposed for not wearing a seatbelt.
Hakeemullah said that the e-challans carried the correct date and location details, leaving him stunned when he discovered the total amounted to Rs. 50,000.
Traffic police officials confirmed that they had contacted the affected citizen and directed him to visit a facilitation center. The department said the challans would be reviewed and, since this was his first violation, the fines were likely to be waived.
Meanwhile, Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon defended the e-challan system, saying the initiative was introduced to ensure strict enforcement of traffic rules and improve road safety across Karachi.
Addressing a press conference in Karachi, Memon said that some political parties were criticizing the new system for political reasons. “Lives are lost when people fail to follow traffic rules. The purpose of e-challans is not to burden citizens but to enforce discipline on the roads,” he said.
He added that the provincial government had revised outdated traffic laws to make them more effective and that the new regulations were already yielding positive results. “We will continue to make decisions in the public interest. We want citizens to follow traffic laws so that no one loses even a single rupee unnecessarily,” he asserted.
Memon further claimed that the number of road accidents had decreased since the introduction of stricter traffic enforcement. Referring to the recent dumper truck incident, he said those responsible had been arrested and that work on improving Karachi’s infrastructure was progressing rapidly.
