A single officer (ARTO, Enforcement) can’t resolve all the traffic woes of the city,” said the Regional Transport Officer of Dehradun, Dinesh Chandra Pathoi. Questioning what the Dehradun police is doing in this regard, he said, "I think the Senior Superintendent of Police should also look after these issues and deploy some officials to check the traffic violations.”
The public transport operators in Dehradun are routinely seen flouting most traffic rules meant especially for them. As per Rule 15 of Uttarakhand Motor Vehicles Rules, the city buses driver should wear a khaki shirt or a coat with four flapped pockets and a khaki trouser and a khaki cap. As per the Rule 34 of Uttarakhand Motor Vehicles Rules, bus conductors should wear a grey coloured four flapped shirt or a coat, a grey colour trouser and a grey colour cap while they are on duty.
Unfortunately, no bus drivers and conductors are following any this rule. Bus conductors on most of the routes don’t even give tickets to their passengers and even charge extra fare from them.
RTO, Pathoi claimed that he conducts checking drive periodically. However the commuters dont seem to be benefitting from these drives as the public transport operators continue to blatantly flout regulations. The city buses are driven rashly, overloaded and stopped on the road itself for commuters thereby causing traffic congestion. These drives if conducted on a regular basis would surely help in checking this traffic nuisance.
Meanwhile, Sandeep Saini, ARTO (Administration) informed that the bus operators are charged a fine of Rs 1,000 if found violating these rules.
The bus conductors also create much inconvenience for the passengers as they keep whistling and hanging at the bus door. When asked, RTO, Pathoi replied, "We keep carrying checking drives for such violations and even punish them. We have a monthly target of collecting around Rs 10-15 lakh and this money is basically collected by imposing challans and penalties every month."
However, Pathoi also said that, the department lacks the adequate number of staff required to effectively tackle the traffic problems in the entire city. He added that the SSP and the police personnel should also look after these problems. They have sufficient number of police squads and are also capable of looking into this matter. He further said that the RTO has also demanded that the government provide for more squads to the RTO to manage all these issues.