ANPR cameras and e-challans: how your truck gets fined without being stopped

A driver can now finish a trip without being stopped once and still come back with three challans against the truck. He will not know about them, and neither will the office, unless someone checks. Automatic number plate recognition cameras, speed cameras and e-challan devices have changed how traffic offences reach a fleet.

The legal basis

Section 136A of the Motor Vehicles Act, inserted by the 2019 amendment, provides for electronic monitoring and enforcement of road safety. Under it, states and cities install cameras on highways and city roads that record offences and generate challans electronically. E-challans are issued and paid through the Parivahan e-Challan system.

How a camera challan happens

1. A camera captures the truck: a photograph or video clip with the time and place.
2. Software reads the number plate. This is the ANPR step: automatic number plate recognition.
3. The offence is identified: speed above the limit, a red light crossed, a wrong lane, or a vehicle on a road at a restricted time.
4. The system looks up the vehicle and issues an e-challan against it, with the evidence attached.
5. A message goes to the mobile number registered on the vehicle's record.

Steps 1 to 4 need nobody at the roadside. Step 5 depends on the mobile number on the vehicle record being current and being read by someone who acts on it. For a fleet, that number often belongs to an owner who receives dozens of messages a day, or to someone who left the company two years ago.

What cameras catch on trucks

• Overspeeding, under Section 183. For a medium or heavy goods vehicle, ₹2,000 to ₹4,000.
• Jumping a red light, under Section 184, ₹1,000 to ₹5,000 for a first offence and up to ₹10,000 after that.
• Not wearing a seatbelt, under Section 194B, ₹1,000.
• Using a mobile phone while driving, under Section 184, with the same amounts as red-light jumping.
• Lane and time restrictions in cities that limit heavy vehicles at certain hours, under local notifications.

States can set different compounding amounts for each of these, so the challan may show a different figure. Our challan fine lookup shows the Act amount for fifteen offences that matter to goods vehicles.

Why challans pile up

A single camera challan is a small amount. The problem is that nobody sees it. A truck on a long-haul route passes through several states and cities a week, each with its own cameras. Challans accumulate against the vehicle, and the first time anyone notices may be when the truck needs RTO work, such as a transfer, a permit renewal or fitness, and pending challans hold it up. Unpaid challans can also be sent to a virtual court, which we explain in Virtual courts for traffic challans.

There is a second cost. A challan found months later is hard to assign to anyone. Which driver was on the truck on that date? Was it the one who has since left? Without that answer, the fleet ends up paying for offences it could have recovered or prevented through driver coaching.

How to keep up across a fleet

1. Check every vehicle, every day. Not only the trucks that had a trip, and not only the ones in cities with cameras. Challans can also be issued by officers with handheld devices.
2. Assign each challan to the driver on duty at the time and place of the offence, using your trip records.
3. Decide quickly: pay, or contest through the virtual court. The evidence is attached to the challan, so look at it.
4. Keep the evidence and the outcome with the vehicle's file, so the history is there when you review a driver or renew a policy.
5. Keep the mobile number on the vehicle record current, so messages reach someone who acts on them.

Where PRACHSO fits

PRACHSO's Challan Desk checks every vehicle for new e-challans daily and assigns each one to the driver on duty at the time, using the trip or duty roster you keep in PRACHSO. It tracks whether the challan has been paid or sent to a virtual court, and keeps the evidence with the vehicle. PRACHSO does not pay or contest challans on anyone's behalf and does not give legal advice: it makes sure the office sees each challan the day it is issued, not the day the RTO refuses to process a transfer.