Now Mumbai residents can pay traffic challan using FreeCharge. The digital payments platform has joined hands with Mumbai Traffic Police for collection of traffic fines in a cashless manner in the wake of the demonetisation going on in the country.

"We are pleased to partner with Mumbai Traffic Police in their pursuit of making the process of collecting fines cashless. Digital payments make the process faster and more efficient. Such partnerships are in line with our objective to make FreeCharge an everyday, everywhere option for our users, "said Govind Rajan, CEO, FreeCharge.

Nearly 500 e-challan devices have been rolled out to various traffic chowkies across the city at present. Once an offender is caught violating any rule, an e-challan will be generated against the vehicle registration number. The challan would also be sent to person's mobile phone immediately. The user can log on to www.mumbaipolice.net, enter their challan or vehicle number and pay using FreeCharge on the payments page.

Also Read: After demonetisation, e-wallets strike it rich while India runs out of cash

In a statement shared earlier, Mumbai traffic police said that it expects an annual increase of 8 lakh challans, from the existing 22 lakhs. Such an effort will also help them in identifying and taking action against repeat offenders.

FreeCharge is also in discussion with police authorities in other cities to enable traffic challans to be paid via FreeCharge. As per publicly available information, the amount of traffic challans in metros is sizeable - Delhi pays about Rs 140 Crores annually, Mumbai about Rs 100 Crores, while Bengaluru collects Rs 70 Crores. Even smaller cities like Ahmedabad collect nearly Rs 17 Crores annually as traffic fines.

Demonetisation is the new buzz in the country these days. While people are seen running out of money and ATMs going out of currency and even out of order at many places, e-wallets are seeing huge profits post the announcement. Freecharge recently tied up with Snapdeal for the wallet-on-delivery service. The service allows the consumers to pay for goods through the e-wallet once the product is delivered to them. FreeCharge in around a week said that it has already carried out over 1 lakh transactions as part of its wallet on delivery service for Snapdeal.

Paytm which seemingly is making the best of the moment also reported over 7 million transactions worth Rs 120 crore in a day. The company on Wednesday also said that it has seen 35 million transactions for mobile and DTH recharges on its platform post the demonetisation announcement.



Also Read: 35 million online recharges done over last few days: Paytm