Visiting Shimla? Beware of Rs 5k challan

Shimla Traffic police seems obsessed with imposing heavily penalty on parked vehicles in downtown areas

The Shimla traffic police seems obsessed with imposing challans these days. It seems the only mission of the entire force in the hill station .

Sparing no one, whether local, tourist or government vehicles, they catch hold of the parked cars in downtown areas inside the yellow line and don't even spare those uptown.

As if this wasn't enough, the fine, too, has been steeply hiked. The penalty now varies from Rs 500 to Rs 5,000. Forget about days when the cops let you off with a warning pasted on your car.

While earlier they mostly targeted vehicles for 'idle parking', now owners are challaned even for driving at 20 km an hour. Earlier the challaning ended by 5 or 6 pm, but now the cops can be seen challaning even at 8 pm. So what explains such actions on the part of the cops? Is it just an easy way to make money for the Himachal government's empty coffers? Or, are they just doing what they should have done a long time ago?