Nearly ₹7 crore collected in compounding fee for violations by vehicles

With the Transport department embarking on a special drive to check compliance of contract carriage buses in the aftermath of the Kurnool bus accident, officials of the Road Transport Authority checked scores of vehicles and seized as many as nine buses, including one which allegedly had blocked the exit.

According to RTA officials, thus far, 270 vehicle check reports were issued, and ₹6.92 crore were collected by way of compounding fee. Violations included vehicles plying the roads with commercial goods onboard, and not carrying first aid kits. As many as nine vehicles were seized from October 25 to November 1.

“This is an ongoing drive. We will continue to check private buses and ensure compliance. In due course, we have been noticing some violations in these buses, including not having fire extinguishers in them. On Friday (October 31), a sleeper bus enroute to Bengaluru was found to have the exit locked from the inside,” said a senior Transport department official.

The Transport department got into action soon after tragedy struck aboard the V Kaveri Travels sleeper bus on October 24 in which 19 passengers were killed. While the bus had a Daman and Diu registration number plate, it came to light that it was re-registered in Rayagada in Odisha. The bus, according to senior officials from the Odisha Transport department, had first entered that State in April this year after which it was registered there.

The Telangana government is gearing up to organise a joint-meeting of transport commissioners from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. In the recent past, Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar told The Hindu that discussions developing a mechanism to monitor private buses running on All India Tourist Permits are on the anvil.