SDMs to register vehicles, issue driver’s licences
Rajmeet Singh
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, May 21
To revamp the Transport Department, the state government has decided to authorise 78 Sub-Divisional Magistrates (SDMs) in Punjab to handle the work of registration of private vehicles and issuance of driver’s licence.
There are 32 automatic driving test tracks in the state. These will now come under the direct supervision of the SDM concerned.
The new procedure, aimed at ending corruption, is expected to start from next month after a formal approval to “restructure” the Transport Department by the Council of Ministers in the forthcoming Cabinet meeting. Under the plan, a decision has already been taken to scrap 22 posts of District Transport Officer (DTO), four posts of Regional Transport Authority (RTA) and eight of Motor Vehicle Inspector (MVI).
So far as commercial vehicles are concerned, the entire work related to the registration, paying of taxes, issuing permits for trucks and buses and fitness testing of all type of commercial vehicles will be handled by 10 offices of Regional Transport Officer (RTO). Additional staff is being sought by the department to implement the restructuring.
To adjust the officers working against sanctioned posts, the higher authorities have decided that five of the RTOs will be headed by PCS officers and the remaining by departmental officers working in the rank of DTO or RTA.
At present, PCS officers are posted on 19 of the 22 posts of DTO. Of the four posts of RTA in Patiala, Jalandhar, Feorzepur and Bathinda, three are with PCS officers.
10 RTOs to come up
The offices of the RTO will be set up in Bathinda, Ferozepur, Patiala, Sangrur, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Mohali, Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur. The RTOs will replace four RTAs in the state (Patiala, Jalandhar, Ferozepur and Bathinda).
Navdeep Asija, Traffic Adviser, Punjab, said: “The scrapping of the posts of DTO is a good step. Apart from replacing one set of people with another, the government should go for e-governance to reduce the official-public contact to end corruption. Most of the works should be done online.”
