₹660 crore collected for traffic violations, only ₹67 crore spent

How is money paid by citizens as fine for violating traffic rules being utilised in the State?

According to the Government, which collected a whopping ₹660 crore as traffic fine in three years, the money is spent on a host of traffic-related projects. However, in its own admission, just about ₹67.65 crore has been released in three years. Worse still, only about ₹47.09 crore has been spent.

On Thursday, the Government informed the Legislative Council that it has collected a fine of ₹660.97 crore between 2019 and 2021. The highest was collected in 2021 with ₹265. 52 crore, followed by ₹208.47 crore in 2020 and ₹186.97 crore in 2019, data provided by Home Minister Araga Jnanendra to the Council revealed. His response was to a question from Congress MLC Dinesh Gooligowda.

According to the data, of the total ₹660 crore, the highest traffic fine was collected in Bengaluru city ₹329 crore, followed by Mysuru city with ₹23.6 crore, and Hubballi-Dharwad with ₹18.9 crore.

When it comes for spending from the money collected as fine, the Government released ₹2.46 crore to districts and ₹9.01 crore to cities during 2018-2019 of which ₹2.4 crore and ₹8.13 crore, respectively, was spent. In 2019-2020, ₹1.28 crore and ₹5 crore was released to district units and cities, respectively, of which the entire amount was spent.

In 2021, under other category, ₹50 core was released of which ₹30.26 crore was spent. An explanation in the written reply by the Home Minister said that of the total funds released n 2020-2021, ₹19.73 crore has been kept as as a deposit in KRDICL by Bengaluru Police Commissioner for a tender process. In all ₹67.75 crore was released in three years of which ₹47.09 crore has been spent.