Drive against owners of vehicles violating tourist permits

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, JUNE 12. The Transport Department has launched a drive against owners of vehicles which have all-India tourist permits.

The department decided to launch the drive after a case was registered against the owner of two buses which had the same registration number and only one permit. The incident came to light during a surprise check recently.

On Monday, 153 tourist buses were checked and 46 cases booked against offenders. A sum of Rs. 82,000 was collected as fine and two buses were seized for not paying road tax.

The Transport Commissioner, Mr. Thimme Gowda, the Joint Transport Commissioners, Mr. M.K.Aiyappa, Mr. T.Sham Bhat, and Mr. Mohammed Suleiman, supervised the drive.

Mr. Thimme Gowda told The Hindu that special squads had been formed for conducting the drive.

Mr. Suleiman said the owner of the two buses which had the same registration number had got one of them registered in Andhra Pradesh. Subsequently, he surrendered the permit and paid idle tax. The bus was originally registered in Karnataka. In 1995, the owner sought a ``no objection certificate'' and got the vehicle registered in Andhra Pradesh, he added.

The department suspected that the owner had been operating the bus since 1995 in Karnataka after obtaining the certificate. The officials had been instructed to collect from him the tax since 1995. A case had been registered, he said.

Sources in the department said many owners of vehicles having all-India tourist permits violated the law. In many cases, they operated vehicles as stage carriages between major cities. Most them operated between Bangalore-Mangalore-Udupi-Kundapur, Bangalore-Hubli-Belgaum, Bangalore-Mysore, Bangalore-Mumbai, Mangalore-Mumbai, and Bangalore-Hyderabad.

Since the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation's (KSRTC) services were inadequate, the unauthorised bus operators could make huge profits.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : Two taken into custody in Aazam murder case
Next     : Bid by extremists to create tension: CPI