Accusing officers of the Transport department of corruption, president of City Bus Seva Union, Vijay Vardhan Dandriyal submitted a letter in the office of Garhwal commissioner Dilip Jawalkar, seeking a probe in the matter of colour code for three wheelers operating in Uttarakhand.
He claimed that some of the senior officers in the department continue to advocate in favour of these three-wheelers getting stage carriage permit, even when it is against the rules. Dandriyal said, “In response to one of the RTI applications I filed in September 2018 the transport department stated that according to the orders passed by Regional Transport Authority (RTA) in 2014, they have permitted Vikrams to coloured blue so that the Vikrams operating from other centres can be identified. However all the Vikrams operating at Doiwala, Badowala, Parval, Herbertpur, Vikasnagar, Roorkee and Haridwar centres are of same blue colour. The important thing is that according to Uttarakhand Motor Vehicles Act, Vikrams should have yellow hood with black sides.” He further said, “This is a matter of investigation, as this appears to be another matter of corruption and carelessness of the department.
The department has completely failed in enforcing the high court orders of year 2014, 2017 and 2018, in which it has been stated that vehicles with the designated permits should operate according to the conditions applied to the respective permit.
However, department has failed to comply. The vehicles with contract carriage permits are not allowed to take retail passengers on selected routes, still they operate in that manner and enforcement is missing.” One of senior State Transport Authority (STA) officials said that department is advocating for Vikrams to get stage carriage permit because city buses alone cannot facilitate public transport in district.