Wednesday, 23 June 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
The Transport and Social Welfare minister Yashpal Arya has directed the officials of transport department to undertake every possible measure for making the Uttarakhand Transport Corporation (UTC) debt free.
He was addressing a review meeting of the department at Vidhan Sabha auditorium on Tuesday. He emphasized on collective efforts to increase the income and a cut on expenditures of the corporation so that salaries can be paid on time. On a terse note the minister expressed his displeasure on lack of proper advocacy on the part of the department for the assets which are to be transferred from the Uttar Pradesh Transport Corporation to the UTC. He said that the dispute on transfer of assets between UP and Uttarakhand should be solved with mutual coordination and talks. He said that the process of auction of the scrap in the UTC should be completed in time. The minister expressed his strong disapproval of the tendency to take loans and directed the officers to improve operations, strict action on ticket-less travel and taking the austerity measures to reduce the expenditure. In one such measure he said that the process of installing CNG kits in the buses of UTC should be expedited.
He also asked the department to prepare a working plan to pay back the Rs 175 Crore bank loan of the UTC. Arya said that the structure of the department should be re constituted so that optimum utilization of the potential of the employees is made. In the meeting the minister was told that a sum of Rs two Crore is required to transfer the old workshop of UTC from Haridwar road to the new place at Transport Nagar. The construction work on the new workshop would be completed in six months. The minister directed the secretary Transport to release the sum for the new workshop without any delay.
The meeting was attended by Transport secretary Ranjit Sinha, additional secretary Anand Srivastava, Transport MD Abhishek Rautela, UTC GM Deepak Jain and others.
