Unpaid challans: Delhi Transport dept to blacklist vehicles

NEW DELHI: The Delhi transport department has announced that vehicles with more than five unpaid challans pending for over 90 days will be “blacklisted”. The department will bar the owners of such vehicles from selling them, purchasing insurance, or renewing their Pollution Under-Control (PUC) certificates. The officials of the transport department hope this move will reduce the backlog of unpaid fines and improve traffic discipline. The vehicles will be blacklisted on the Vahan portal, and the department has requested the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to automate the process on the software. The vehicles will be removed from the blacklist only after the fines are paid.

Ashish Kundra, Transport Commissioner, Government of Delhi, said that the decision was taken in line with an advisory issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in April. The advisory urged states to implement such rules to enforce traffic discipline among vehicle owners, making public spaces safer and causing minimal inconvenience to people.

The decision to blacklist such vehicles was taken during a meeting last month, and it was decided that NIC would be requested to make provisions in the software to blacklist defaulting vehicles. This rule will apply only to vehicles registered in Delhi. An official also mentioned that since vehicles will be blacklisted on the Vahan portal while renewing PUC certificates, the centre will not be able to carry out the test.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways issued an advisory to the Delhi government regarding blacklisting vehicles on Vahan and asked the transport department to implement it as per rule 167 of CMVR, 1989. The draft of the notice that the government will send to the defaulting vehicles will say, “As per the record of Transport Department, GNCTD, five or more challans of your vehicle number DL are pending for more than 90 days, and you are requested to make the payment within 10 days failing which the transaction of the motor vehicle will be placed under the blacklisted category.”

An officer stated that Delhi has over 20 million pending challans against 5.8 million vehicles, including private and commercial vehicles, such as cars, bikes, three-wheelers, trucks, etc.