Transport department imposes challans on over 350 Vikram operators for violations
Monday, 19 June 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Transport department has claimed to have imposed challan on over 350 Vikram operators since April for committing several violations under the Motor Vehicles Act in Dehradun. The department has been taking consistent action against violations by Vikram operators like overloading, picking passengers from anywhere on a route and causing traffic nuisance among others, said the regional transport officer (enforcement) of the Dehradun division Shailesh Tiwari. He said that 794 Vikrams were being operated in Dehradun but in a meeting of the regional transport authority (RTA) on November 1 last year, it was decided that Vikrams will be replaced by clean fuel four-wheeler vehicles like CNG fuelled vehicles, electric vehicles, and electric hybrid vehicles or BS VI vehicles.
The department gave the Vikram operators a time of over three months to apply for stage carriage permits to operate four-wheeler vehicles by March 31 which was later extended to April 10 to give another chance to those who could not apply before. He said that so far, 200 Vikrams have been either converted or replaced into clean fuelled vehicles. He said that since the regional transport office is diligently working on improving the local public transportation system in Dehradun, they have started taking strict action against violations by unauthorised operation of Vikrams. He said that most of the Vikrams do not comply with the rules as per their contract carriage permits which is a violation under the MV Act and also often leads to public nuisance like traffic obstruction on main roads among others.
To minimise such practices, the enforcement team has been conducting regular checking on main routes like Rajpur Road, Raipur Road, Chakrata Road and Saharanpur Road besides the routes of ISBT, Araghar, Dharampur and Rispana Road where the Vikrams operate the most in the city. He said that since April, the team has imposed challan on a total of 356 Vikrams and also seized 15 Vikrams for various violations. He said that most of these were violating rules as per the contract carriage permits besides carrying more passengers than permitted risking the lives of passengers as well as other commuters. “We challaned 56 Vikram operators for violations of rules under their respective permits. We challaned 32 operators for overloading.
We have also written to RTA to act against the permit issued to some Vikram operators for violations,” said Tiwari. He said that the department is also acting on vehicles parked in the No-parking zone in the past three months. “The team has imposed challan on 741 vehicles parked in no-parking zones which were causing traffic nuisance to the public. We will continue to take such action to streamline traffic issues in the city,” added the RTO.
