While the Traffic Police has even sent a draft proposal to the UT Home Secretary’s office, appealing him to increase the compounding fee for the traffic violations with a minimum of Rs 300 per traffic offence, the UT Administration appears to be in no mood to agree.

Rather, the senior administration officials are giving lame excuses and have created alibis for not increasing the compounding fee for traffic violations.

“In case we increase the compounding fee for the traffic violation and the violator gets away by paying 10 or 20 per cent of the fine amount in local court, the whole purpose would get defunct. We are yet to hold a meeting with police, but increasing the fines is not likely to receive much good response,” said a senior administration official.

Sources disclosed that the Chandigarh Administration officials, who are yet to hold a meeting with UT Inspector General of Police and various other officials concerned on the issue, have already made up their mind of not increasing the compounding fee for traffic violations anymore. while countries like the United Kingdom charge a hefty amount (as much as Rs 4.5 lakh, when converted to Indian currency) for driving in an inebriated state, and about Rs 2 lakh for overspeeding, in Chandigarh a violator can get away by merely paying Rs 1,300 for the offences.

Every year, the Chandigarh Traffic Police challans more than 1.5 lakh traffic violators.

“With such a large number of traffic violations being convicted on roads of a city like Chandigarh, the accident probabilities are definitely going to increase.

“Unless we implement a phenomenal increase in compounding fee for the traffic violations, a challan can never be set as a deterrent for the violators.