Dhanbad police caught over 500 commuters travelling without mandatory e-passes as the fourth phase of the state-wide lockdown commenced on Sunday.

The police carried out extensive vehicle checking spread over 56 police stations of the district.

Many of violators, however, were let off after it was known that they faced difficulties in getting e pass due to a technical glitch of the server in the official website epassjharkhand.nic.in. Several others had to make rounds of the cyber cafe of their colony operating from residential complex for getting print outs of their passes.

Traffic DSP, Rajesh Kumar Yadav who led the checking drive at City Centre Chowk, Rangatand Chowk and Randhir Verma Chowk said, “Though large majority of people were aware about the government notification and carrying the passes but we have caught several persons with no passes from different parts of the district some of whom have been let free after explaining valid reasons while others have been fined.”

The roads and market places were much less crowded compared with other days.

R.K. Chaudhary, a resident of Saraidhela who owns a wholesale medicine outlet at Topchanchi around 20 km away from his house said, “I came to know about the e pass when I went outside to go to my workplace this morning at around 7 am and tried continuously for three hours to get e-pass from my mobile phone to go riding bike but failed and ultimately had to remain at home.”

Sanjay Kumar, a courier service operator who also owns a cyber cafe at Binod Market in Hirapur said, “Ever since I opened the shop, I tried continuously for getting passes for near and dear ones but due to glitch in sever I had to face a lot of difficulty and ultimately the situation improved a bit during the afternoon.”