Ludhiana RTO clears pendency backlog, collects Rs 221.18-crore revenue
Ludhiana, July 17
In a major sigh of relief to the public, the Regional Transport Officer (RTO) has cleared the pendency backlog of driving licences (DLs), vehicle registration certificates (RCs) and all other allied services in Ludhiana district, the government has said.
Besides issuing almost 64,000 DLs of different forms, the RTO has also issued RCs to over 52,000 new vehicles registered in the district during the past six months, officials have revealed.
With this, the RTO has collected a whopping revenue amounting to over Rs 221.18 crore.
It was done despite acute staff shortage and other shortcomings in the system. Most of the backlog cleared during the year was lying pending since previous years.
RTO Randeep Singh told The Tribune here on Wednesday that pending files pertaining to various services related to DLs, RCs and other allied deliveries, which were complete in all respects and were received till June 30, have been cleared, and the work was in full swing to clear the remaining pendency as well at the earliest.
“The files lying pending at present at different stages are due to technical errors, redundant files or shortcomings at the level of applicants such as non-submission of complete documents, expired insurance, no HSRP, pending fines or not turning up for tests,” he said.
The RTO said DL and RC applications received till June 30 had been processed with the issuance of relevant certificates to applicants while the documents at present lying pending at the scrutiny or verification stage were mostly delayed due to the shortcomings/ deficiencies at the level of applicants.
Divulging the pendency reasons, the RTO detailed that almost 819 files of vehicle registration certificates were pending due to various reasons and were being cleared as and when the applicants were clearing shortcomings.
Similarly, around 1,028 pending files of DLs were pending, of which 300 were delayed due to technical errors while others were pending due to incomplete tests.
“The pending RC files, mostly those which were having errors of “HSRP not found” or pending fines, were being reverted back to the applicants for rectifying the mistakes at their level,” he revealed.
According to official figures, as many as 1,028 files pertaining to various services related to the DLs and 819 cases of RCs for different purposes were in the course of issuance at various stages till June 30.
When it comes to the issuance of the DLs, as many as 63,667 new DLs, including 42,353 learners, 20,216 regular and 1,098 international, were issued here between January 1 and June 30. Besides, 24,605 driving licences were renewed or re-issued with change in address or other corrections during the period.
A total of 52,291 new vehicles were registered in the district during the past six months, of which the RCs were already issued to 51,472 applicants. Besides, the RTO office had approved a whopping 2,39,627 transactions for various services pertaining to RCs and DLs, of which 1,51,355 applications were processed for RCs and 88,272 applications were approved for DLs of all forms, including learner’s, regular, international, conductor, renewal, and others as well.
Dubious past
The office of the Ludhiana RTO has a dubious past. The then incumbent Narinder Singh Dhaliwal was arrested by the Vigilance Bureau (VB) for allegedly running an organised crime racket to collect money as bribes from transporters in 2022.
During the probe of a complaint lodged at the C’s Anti-Corruption Action Line on November 18, 2022, the VB had found that he was indulged in collecting bribes through some private persons from different transporters on a monthly basis in Ludhiana on the pretext of not issuing challans of their vehicles. Following the arrest, the working of the RTO’s office had come to a standstill, which had led to the pendency of various services.
