Delhi: Commercial vehicle owners may soon receive challans on WhatsApp

New Delhi: Delhi's transport department will soon start sending challans to owners of commercial vehicles on WhatsApp, according to officials. Those not on WhatsApp will be contacted through SMS and email.

Delhi has around 82 lakh active vehicles and nearly 1,000-1,500 e-challans are issued on a daily basis. The number could rise manifold once the new traffic challan system becomes operational, the officials said on Saturday.

"The process for hiring a service provider for challan enforcement related to commercial vehicles registered in Delhi has started," a senior transport department officer said.

"The main objective is to create and send personalised content using hyperlinks, PDFs and text for e-challans and other services," he said.

It would require accessing challans against individuals from the e-Parivahan portal, he added.

The service provider will set up WhatsApp accounts integrated with e-challans for sending a payment link issued by the transport department to vehicle owners and provide a user interface to send WhatsApp notifications and messages to registered users of the application developed by the department, the officials said.

The messages will be in both English and Hindi, and the messaging framework will be capable of sending messages in various formats, such as images, video and PDF, allowed by WhatsApp, they said.

According to the officials, there will be an automated process of sending e-challans, certificates, user manuals and other notifications like due date reminders, payment receipts and notices to vehicle owners through WhatsApp.