Saturday, 13 May 2023 | PURNIMA BISHT | DEHRADUN
Offers Vikram operators to ply on internal routes till HC’s final decision
Considering the increasing number of private vehicles on Dehradun’s roads causing various traffic issues along with air pollution, the Transport department has prepared a three tier plan to facilitate public transport in semi-rural areas and internal routes of Dehradun to provide an easy and efficient way for people to access public transportation.
The department has divided the whole city into nine zones for the implementation of this plan to ensure every internal and main route is connected through public transport, said the regional transport officer (administration) of Dehradun division Sunil Sharma. He told The Pioneer that the RTO will manage the public transportation in Dehradun as per its three-tier plan. He said, “In the first level, only city buses will operate as public transport on major routes. The second level is intermedial public transport under which only mini buses also known as Tata Magics will be operated on certain routes. In the third level, vehicles carrying contract carriage permits like auto rickshaws and e-rickshaws will be allowed to operate as public transport vehicles for local conveyance.” He said that there was an imbalance of operation of public transport vehicles in the city as certain routes had 200-300 vehicles while some had none.
He said that RTO is diligently working in improving the local public transportation system in Dehradun, especially in rural and internal areas of the city for which it has marked nine sub centres to strengthen the local transportation. These nine sub centres are Supply Depot Chowk, Jogiwala Chowk, Mamchand Chowk, Gorakhpur Chowk, Telpur Chowk, Subhash Chowk, Bengali Kothi Chowk, Pathribagh THDC Colony Chowk and Tapovan Chowk. Sharma said that most of the internal routes of these areas do not have easy access to public transport to connect to main roads at present but all internal routes of these areas will be connected via vehicles with contract carriage permits.
He also informed that RTO will also provide an opportunity to 285 Vikram operators who are still operating in the city after the High Court’s stay on the proposal of RTO to operate only clean fuel vehicles. “We will give them an opportunity to cater to the need of local transportation in internal areas till the court gives its final order in the matter. It is because we take action against the violations of Vikrams in the city and they ask us what else they can do when they can neither operate on roads nor buy clean fuelled vehicles. Vehicles holding contract carriage permits were originally meant to operate in the internal routes and we will make sure they run as per the rules,” added Sharma.
