Telangana abolishes transport check posts to enhance transparency and efficiency

The Telangana government on Wednesday announced the abolition of all transport department check posts across the State, marking a major administrative shift aimed at reducing corruption and bringing greater transparency to vehicular movement.

Speaking to the media, Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar said the decision, which was finalised two months ago, was implemented from today through a Government Order (GO). The move is a part of the government’s effort to provide citizen-friendly services, and bring about greater transparency.

The Transport department will now turn to artificial intelligence tools and surveillance to record who enters and exits offices of the department, especially those who visit premises frequently, an indication towards brokers and agents. Cameras have been installed to keep a check and all efforts are being made to remove middle-men.

The Minister noted that data integration with national digital platforms Vahan and Sarathi has begun after a decade of delay. “There are 28 States using Vahan and Sarathi. Telangana has now joined them, and data transformation is under way,” he said. The State is also implementing a vehicle scrapping policy and has written to the Police and RTC departments to send old vehicles for scrapping.

Touching upon the push towards adopting electric mobility, Mr. Prabhakar said that the State’s Electric Vehicle (EV) policy has begun showing tangible results. “After introducing the policy, we have given tax exemptions amounting to ₹577 crore. The share of EV sales has risen from 0.03% to 1.13%,” he said. He added that permission has been granted for as many as 20,000 electric autorickshaws in Hyderabad. Further, greenlight has been given for 10,000 each of LPG and CNG autos, and 25,000 retrofitted vehicles.

Mr. Prabhakar said that the department has adopted a new logo in addition to changing the abbreviation from TS to TG. Enforcement has been given a fillip with the recruitment and training of 112 Assistant Motor Vehicle Inspectors.

With as many as 1.7 crore vehicles on Telangana roads, the Minister said the government was committed to ensuring transparency and accountability.

Given that there appears to be a rise in sale of new vehicles post the GST reduction, he said that the numbers will be reviewed soon and an analysis of how this will affect traffic would be taken.