PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE/Dehradun
To reduce traffic congestion and ensure that vehicles on the road have safe and valid documents, the Transport department will implement an e-detection system in automatic mode from January 19 in the State. This implementation follows the successful testing of the system.
Deputy transport commissioner Shailesh Tiwari explained that the e-detection system is an advanced digital technology that monitors vehicle documents on the road without human intervention. The preparations for this system have been ongoing for the past year. In the first phase, the e-detection system will be implemented through toll plazas located on highways in Uttarakhand. As vehicles pass through these toll plazas, the system identifies their registration numbers through FASTag data. The e-detection system then connects this registration number to the national Vahan portal, managed by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, in real time. This allows the system to automatically verify the validity of essential vehicle documents, including permits, insurance certificates, pollution control certificates (PUCC), fitness certificates and road tax.
Tiwari stated that during this initial phase, e-challans will be issued only for specific violations such as driving without a permit, without an insurance certificate and without a fitness certificate.
“If any document in the database is found to be expired or invalid, the system marks the vehicle as a ‘defaulter.’ It can also identify vehicles older than 15 years whose registration certificates (RCs) have expired without timely renewal,” Tiwari added.
He said that upon confirming a violation, the system automatically generates an e-challan and sends an SMS to the vehicle owner’s registered mobile number. This message includes details such as the challan amount, the type of violation and a digital link for payment. Vehicle owners can pay the fine online via the Parivahan Sewa portal or through the Central government website at https://echallan.parivahan.gov.in.
Tiwari emphasised the objectives and benefits of the system, stating that it eliminates the need for enforcement officers to stop vehicles for inspection, thereby reducing traffic congestion. The automated nature of the system also removes the potential for human bias or illegal activities, ensuring that only vehicles with valid and safe documents are allowed on the road, which in turn helps reduce accidents. He said that the e-detection system is being implemented in collaboration with the NIC from the said date and is set to function based on data from vehicles passing through designated toll plazas across the State. Key toll plazas where this will occur include Bahadrabad in Haridwar, Bhagwanpur in Haridwar, Lacchiwala in Dehradun along with Jagatpur Patti, Banushi, Nagla and Deoria Toll Plazas in Udham Singh Nagar, he said.
It is important to mention that, to ensure effectiveness, manual testing of the system was also done recently. On that day, the e-detection system monitored 49,060 vehicles passing through the seven toll plazas mentioned above. The software identified 1,569 vehicles with expired permits and fitness records. The Transport Headquarters team confirmed the accuracy of this data by matching it with the Vahan database, finding no errors. Consequently, the decision was made to launch the e-detection system in automatic mode starting from the said date.
This system has been implemented successfully in other States such as Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Gujarat.
