Residents rue RTA officials don’t sit in office

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann visited Ludhiana on October 29 to symbolically lock the RTA office, claiming that all the 56 services attached with the department will be taken care of at the Sewa Kendras, where staff had been provided all the training.

But in the absence of clarity over several services, residents visiting Sewa Kandras and RTA offices are facing a hard time, especially those seeking special permissions, clearances by the authorities.

Talking to The Tribune, Jaswinder Singh Grewal, general secretary, Small Scale Bus Operators’ Welfare Association, Punjab, alleged that RTA officials hardly sat in the office due to which the visitors were forced to make multiple rounds to secure clearances on several issues. “On many occassions, we need special permits from the Distict Transport Officer to run buses. But it takes over 10-12 days to find him in his office and our work suffers beacuse of this,” Grewal said. Some other residents voiced similar concerns.

One of the employees at Sewa Kendra said that this permit service was to be provided at Sewa Kendras but there has been no clarity and the software has not been updated. Many residents, seeking renewal of permits, rued that they were had, on multiple occasions, visited both the Sewa Kendras and RTA office, with neither place providing the correct information on how to get the work done.

Further, the Sewa Kendra employees rue that they are getting numerous queries regarding settlement of challans. “The challans are to be settled online but we keep receiving inquiries from residents. We have flagged this issue with our seniors. Else, they can provide us the powers to this end because a lot of residents are suffering due to this confusion,” a Sewa Kendra employee said, adding that the staff received training to issue service permits just two days back. “Things are expected to be streamlined over the next 10-12 days,” the employee said, wishing not to be quoted.

Meanwhile, RTA in-charge Kuldeep Bawa said that though there were initial hiccups, things were being streamlined.