The State Transport Authority plans to increase the revenue earnings from the traffic challans by deploying electronic payment system, involving use of debt and credit cards.

Commenting on the deployment of system by the authority, Vandana Disodia, secretary, STA, said "This is a step forward in adopting high-end technology and moving with the changing times," Disodia said.

Under the proposal, officials at the check-posts would be given debit and credit card reading machines, where commercial vehicles owners can swipe their cards for the payment of challans.

Explaining the need and advantages of such a system, Disodia said, "Normally, there are more defaulters from other cities than Chandigarh. For heavy offences, the STA impounds the vehicles as confiscating the documents does not make any difference to the defaulters."

"Also, if the vehicles are not impounded, the defaulters apply for duplicate documents from their respective state authorities and evade challans," he added.

The challan on commercial vehicles varies from a minimum of Rs 300 to Rs 10,000 or more, with an incremental rate of Rs 1,000 per ton for extra/over loading.

The officials reason, the introduction of electronic card payment system will enable the vehicle owners to pay on-spot challans, without surrendering their vehicles or documents, as the case was earlier in case of non-payment due to lack of cash-in-hand.

In lines with the objective of the set proposal, the authority has already raised the target for revenue collection to Rs 14.75 crore against the earlier target of Rs 13 crores set for FY 08-09. In recent past, the use of credit cards has slowed down considerably.