5 years on, 68,000 traffic challans still pending

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, April 21

Information obtained under the RTI Act revealed that more than 68,000 traffic challans are pending with the Regional Transport Authority for a long time. These challans relate to period between June 20, 2013 and May 31, 2018.

As the department has not disposed of these challans, an activist has sent a legal notice to the authorities concerned.

Advocate Sukhjinder Kaur, on behalf of city-based RTI activist Rohit Sabharwal, has sent the notice to the Principal Secretary, Transport, State Transport Commissioner and secretary, Regional Transport Authority, Ludhiana, for allegedly not taking required measures to dispose of pending traffic challans.

Earlier, Sabharwal had filed a public interest litigation before the Punjab and Haryana High Court for directing the respondents to dispose of a large number of traffic challans pending in the DTO office.

“In compliance with the directions of the court, Sabharwal had requested the authorities concerned to dispose of the pending traffic challans between June 20, 2013 and June 30, 2016 and the rest of the challans that stand pending from July 1, 2016 to May 31, 2018 with the office of the Regional Transport Authority, Ludhiana,” the advocate said.

The complainant blamed the authorities for not taking concrete measures to dispose of the challans in a time-bound manner.

“Information obtained under the RTI Act in November 2018 had revealed that 71,692 traffic challans were pending. In March 2019, the Regional Transport Authority gave information that they had disposed of 2,813 challans. Now, 68,879 traffic challans are still pending as per information provided by the authority concerned. The department has kept the documents of so many persons, whose challans are not being disposed of, for a long time,” said Sabharwal.

“As the department has failed to dispose of these pending traffic challans for such long time, it seems the officials concerned are not serious in this regard. It is a sensitive issue as so many traffic challans are pending,” he said.

Secretary, Regional Transport Authority, Damanjeet Singh Mann, said, “We have not received any legal notice about pending traffic challans. I can comment only after I see the notice.”