RTA Secy’s stint cut short, had tamed violators, cleared pendency

Tribune News Service

Nitin Jain

Ludhiana, October 26

In what appears to be the repercussion of her hard stance against violators, especially illegally plying vehicles, Regional Transport Authority (RTA) Secretary Poonam Preet Kaur has been shifted from the post here.

The 2016-batch Punjab Civil Services (PCS) officer had cracked the whip on the violators of the traffic rules and had acted tough against transporters running illegal vehicles, especially buses and trucks, tractor-trailers, without valid permits and tax evasion.

She had also cleared the pendency backlog of driving licenses (DLs), vehicle registration certificates (RCs) and all other allied services in the district.

The doctor-turned-bureaucrat had joined as the RTA Secretary here on January 30 after her predecessor, Narinder Singh Dhaliwal, was arrested by the Vigilance Bureau (VB) for allegedly running an organised crime racket to collect money as bribes from transporters.

On Tuesday, Dr Poonam was among 50 PCS officers, who were reshuffled in the state. She has been posted as the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) at Payal in Ludhiana.

Though the public attribute her exit to a tough stance against the violators, which had irked mainly the “all-powerful” transporter lobby, the government has denied any such reason and has termed the transfer as “routine on administrative grounds”. “It is a routine process and has nothing to do with any so-called pull or pressure,” a senior officer told The Tribune.

However, the transporters and those, who had been finding it hard to escape the action for violations and getting their illegal jobs done, were upbeat over the transfer.

Setting an example, the RTA Secretary cleared the entire pendency of driving licenses (DLs), vehicle registration certificates (RCs) and all other allied services at her office till October 24, the day she received her transfer order, before relinquishing her charge.

During her less than 9-month stint, Dr Poonam had slapped a fine of whopping over Rs 1.64 crore on the violators and had challaned almost 681 vehicles, mostly heavy ones, including illegal buses/trucks/trailers and those attached with schools, for various violations and tax evasion. Besides, 364 vehicles, mainly the illegally plying buses and trucks without valid permits and routes, had also been impounded.

Besides issuing almost 67,000 DLs of different forms, the RTA Secretary had also issued RCs to around 60,000 new vehicles registered in the state’s biggest and largest district, in terms of area and population, during the past less than nine months.

With this, the RTA had collected a whopping revenue amounting to over Rs 271 crore since January.

It was done despite acute staff shortage and other shortcomings in the system. Most of the backlog cleared during this year was lying pending since previous years during the tenure of her predecessors.

Dr Poonam, who has herself led the entire office staff to work overtime for clearing the years’ and months-old backlog, has cleared pending files pertaining to various services related to DLs, vehicle RCs, and other allied deliveries, which were complete in all respects and were received till October 24.

“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 or not turning up for mandatory tests,” she said.

Divulging the pendency reasons, the RTA Secretary said only a single file of vehicle fitness was pending due to non-payment of penalties while 118 permit cases were not yet issued due to certain shortcomings at the end of the applicants. These included 33 files of fresh permits, 44 renewals, seven cancellations and 34 cases of renewal of permit authorisation.

Only 263 files of new vehicle registrations were pending, which included mostly those, which were having errors of “HSRP not found” and were being reverted back to the applicants for rectifying mistakes at their level. Of this pendency, 220 cases were pending at the level of vehicle dealers while only 43 files were awaiting clearance at the RTA office.

Besides, 324 cases of old RCs, including 145 of hypothecation termination, 94 duplicate issuance, 35 hypothecation addition, 33 transfer and 17 miscellaneous files, were yet to be cleared due to incomplete documentation.

With the clearance and issuance of all cases, which were found complete in all respects, no file of driving licence was left pending before the RTA Secretary left the charge. According to official figures, as many as 66,874 new DLs, including 49,341 learner’s, 15,418 regular and 2,115 international, were issued this year till October 24.

On the RCs front, a total of 59,179 new vehicles were registered in the district since January 1, of which the RCs were issued to 58,916 applicants.

Besides, the RTA office had processed a whopping 2,56,119 transactions for various services pertaining to RCs from which the revenue amounting to Rs 270,94,34,829 was generated this year till October 24. Besides, 1,25,889 applications for DLs of all forms, including learner’s, regular, international, conductor and others were received.

Dubious past

The office of the Ludhiana RTA Secretary has a dubious past. The then incumbent Narinder Singh Dhaliwal was arrested by the VB for allegedly running an organised crime racket to collect money as bribes from transporters.

During the investigation of a complaint lodged at the Chief Minister’s Anti-Corruption Action Line on November 18 last, the VB had found that he was indulged in collecting bribes through some private persons from different transporters on a monthly basis at Ludhiana on the pretext of not issuing challans of their vehicles.

Following the arrest, the working of the RTA Secretary’s office had come to a standstill, which had led to the pendency of various services.

Moving out on a high note: Dr Poonam

“I have no regrets but glad that I have done my bit and am moving out on a high note after giving my best. Despite all odds and stiff resistance from certain quarters, I was able to tame the violators, especially the illegal plying vehicles, and clear the entire pendency till my last day in the office. As a civil servant, we have to work wherever the government posts us and I am committed to doing so,” said Dr Poonam Preet Kaur, PCS.

Ranked 11th in PCS

A Jalandhar native, Dr Poonam Preet Kaur, had cleared the PCS examinations by securing the 11th position in the state in March 2015. The 35-year-old MBBS doctor had done her higher studies and medical education from Chandigarh.

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