Tuesday, 17 October 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Transport department has issued about 25,000 green cards to commercial vehicles since April and collected a revenue of over Rs 1.33 crore. Besides this, the department has also checked over 35,000 vehicles as part of its checking campaign to ensure proper monitoring of vehicles for pilgrims’ safety on Char Dham routes since the commencement of Yatra in the State, said the regional transport officer (Administration) of the Dehradun division Sunil Sharma. He said that out of 25,000 green cards issued by the department, about 15,000 cards were issued to operators from across Uttarakhand and 10,000 cards to operators belonging to other states.
The department has collected a revenue of over Rs 1.33 crore via the issuance of green cards in the past six months, as per the official data of the department. He said that till now, over one lakh pilgrims have travelled via buses and more than four lakh pilgrims have travelled through commercial vehicles. The RTO said that about 40 per cent of pilgrims are travelling through the Roadways buses while the remaining 60 per cent are travelling via commercial vehicles or tempo travellers which include 14 to 16 seater vehicles. He claimed that the department is conducting regular checking campaigns to ensure no vehicle is being operated illegally on Char Dham routes.
Sharma said that the department is regularly checking vehicles across the state through static and dynamic monitoring, especially on Char Dham routes. He said that initially, 12 squads were checking in all checkposts but since most of the pilgrims have been going mostly to Kedarnath and Badrinath in the past few weeks, the squads are mostly checking on these checkposts. Since April, the department has reportedly checked about 25,000 vehicles in all checkposts under the static regulation system and imposed over 1,000 challans. The department will continue this checking till the doors of Char Dham shrines close this year, added the RTO.
