- More than one lac people already downloaded PITB’s Rasta app in three months
LAHORE: With the help of Punjab Information Technology Board, City Traffic Police Lahore (CTPL) launched ‘Digital Challan’ app on Friday to automate and ensure the accountability of violations against traffic rules in the provincial capital.
“The automation of various functions of the city traffic police through technological solutions has become a success story with the dedicated hard work by the police officials to bring genuine reforms in the centuries-old system to facilitate the citizens,” Dr Umar Saif, Chairman of PITB, said while addressing the launch ceremony of the pilot project ‘Digital Challan’, an application developed by the PITB to digitise traffic challan system in Lahore.
He said that this application will be used by 3000 authorised challan officers who perform their duties in three shifts in the 34 traffic sectors of Lahore. The collaboration experience with the Punjab police over a period of three and a half years was credible due to the ownership of police as to bring about genuine reforms one needed to take the risk and to show the leadership, he added.
Dr Saif further added that the automation of Punjab police initiated with the complaint lodge management system was now successfully being practiced across the Punjab police in 713 police stations while the whole Human Resource record of the city police was also digitised. Currently, 4,500 manual challans were being accounted every day and with the induction of Digital Challan application, the system would ensure accountability and transparency, he said.
The PITB Chairman informed that the successful automated projects of the Punjab police attracted the other provinces as well while the PITB assisted Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan police in this regard while the Sindh police showed keen interest in their projects, adding that the Sindh IGP would soon visit to sign an agreement for the replica of their applications.
Addressing the ceremony, the Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) of Lahore Captain (r) Muhammad Amin Wains lauded the support extended by Dr Saif and his team and said that traffic was an important component of the police service by ensuring the smooth, safe and comfortable movement of the people while IT initiatives were imperative and only way forward to improve the operational capacity. There was a need to visit every doorstep and to hold seminars at Police Stations to create awareness among the citizens to respect the law of the land, which was an obligation on all of us, he added. He urged the traffic wardens that challan should be the last resort after creating awareness and they must show maximum tolerance and respect to the commuters instead of arguing or scuffle.
Earlier, Rai Ijaz Ahmad Chief Traffic Officer (CTO) explained the salient feature of the digital challan application and said that in the history of traffic police it was an important opportunity to shift from manual challans to digital one, which was the first phase and would provide database of the nature of the traffic violation, violator and the vehicle to make available the violation history with one click. After monitoring the successful operation of this pilot project, it would be extended to the other cities of Punjab. In the second phase e-Challan application would be used, which would have a feature of electronic payment while in the third phase with the help of cameras installed e-Challan would be introduced to deduct points, he added.
CTO further added that 1,600,000 challans were pending in the courts as the violators didn’t turn up to receive their CNIC, driving license or registration book and manipulate to get the same duplicate of the respective departments, which would not be possible now. He informed that a control room had been established to monitor 250 CCTV live footage installed at 40 points of the city to improve the security environment while all sectors have been equipped with biometric devices, computers, printers and other allied equipment. Security DIG Dr Moeen, Traffic SSP of Punjab Athar Waheed, SP Asif Siddique and SP Sadar Sardar Asif were also present at the occasion.
Moreover, the PITB’s ‘Rasta’ application launched three months ago showed acceptance by the citizens as so far more than one lac people have downloaded this smartphone application, he added.