Gurgaon: Vehicle owners who spend hours searching through hundreds of impounded vehicles at the Sector 29 traffic police parking yard may soon be able to retrieve them more quickly. Traffic police have introduced a software, Vahan Setu, to help locate vehicles after their owners clear the challan and arrive to take them back.The yard has around 3,000 vehicles parked in congested rows across nearly four acres of uneven land. Until now, owners often had to walk through the crowded premises and search for their vehicles manually, a process that could take more than an hour.The ordeal was evident when Ganesh, a resident of Ashok Vihar, was seen searching for his bike, which had been impounded the previous week. He was looking through the bushes and across the sprawling yard before a traffic police officer helped him locate it. “It’s been around 40 minutes since I was looking for my bike before a traffic police officer helped me find my vehicle,” Ganesh told TOI.The new system, which came into use on Tuesday, records the row in which each vehicle is parked, allowing operators to guide owners to the right location. Boards marked A, B, C and D have been installed to identify sections, with plans to extend the signage from A to Z, police said. Each row will accommodate around 50 vehicles.The process begins when a vehicle is brought to the yard after being impounded for a traffic violation. Two operators assigned to the task photograph the vehicle and the traffic policeman bringing it in, while recording its parking location in the software. When the owner or an authorised person returns after paying the challan, the operators verify the relevant documents and use the recorded location to help locate the vehicle. The recipient is also photographed at the time of release. Police processed 55 vehicles through the software on Tuesday.However, the system’s effectiveness will depend on how comprehensively the records are updated. Vehicles parked before its introduction on Tuesday, as well as those placed in the yard without their details being entered into the software, may not be traceable through it. Their owners could still have to search manually.The system is expected to save time, particularly during busy periods when several people arrive to reclaim their vehicles. Earlier, police personnel maintained separate registers for vehicle entry and release, adding to the time required to complete the process.“We try to maintain the rows manually in a way that helps vehicle owners find their vehicles as early as possible. This software, however, will make things easier,” said ASI Rajkumar, in-charge of the Sector 29 yard.“The aim is to make the process of challaning and impounding vehicles more streamlined, convenient and hassle-free for residents. Vahan Setu will help reduce the time and effort people spend locating their impounded vehicles, while also saving valuable time for traffic personnel. Our objective is to minimise the inconvenience to the public at every stage of the process,” said DCP (traffic) Hitesh Yadav.While the software aims to address the difficulty of locating impounded vehicles, conditions at the parking yard remain a concern. Despite thousands of vehicles being kept there, the premises lack CCTV cameras, leaving them without camera-based surveillance. The land is also overgrown with bushes, plagued by mosquitoes and lacks adequate lighting, making it difficult for personnel to manage the premises at night.The yard also lacks fencing, raising concerns about the security of impounded vehicles. A traffic police officer said these issues would be taken up with the concerned authorities.
