The Regional Transport Office here has initiated several measures under the Motor Vehicle Act including enforcement recovery of outstanding amount.
Within three months, while it has suspended about 1,000 driving licences, about 400 road permits of various vehicles have been cancelled owing to flouting of rules. The violation of rules include rash and drunken driving, overloading and without valid document besides using mobile phone during driving.
The department has collected about Rs40 crore as penalty, a majority of which from the check gates of Jaleswar and interstate gates of laxamannath under various rule violations, said sources.
“We have interceptor vehicle as well as breath analyzer. With these two tools we are able to detect the over speed and drunken driving,” said Regional Transport Officer, Baleswar Amaresh Patra.
“So far while 1,000 driving licences have been suspended for three months, about 400 road permits have been cancelled on account of violation of law. Besides collecting a penalty of about Rs40 crore for mainly over loading by enforcement squads, about Rs5 crore has been collected under pending tax recovery cases (TRC) of Rs21 crore, “ he informed, adding only 170 TRCs have been resolved against 5,700 pending ones.
In order to recover the amount under TRC the respective police stations to which the defaulters belong have been informed and action also have been initiated to attach immoveable property of the defaulters.
Since the year of establishment of regional transport office in undivided Baleswar in 1958-59, while 14,000 tax defaulters have been found, the department also initiated actions to recover them from the owners.
In several cases, the department couldn’t find the vehicles as they are sold outside the State secretly.
In some cases the finance companies after seizing vehicles from the defaulter loanees have disposed the vehicles outside the State without obtaining permission from the RTO.
“A criminal case has been initiated against a private finance company as it sold vehicles outside the State without permission. Further, about some case matters, the Crime Branch and the RBI have been informed,” Patra told.