Cancel registeration of 25 year old vehicles

Srinagar, Nov 1: Jammu and Kashmir High Court (HC) has directed the authorities to cancel the registeration of all 25-year-old commerical vehicles in the state.

''We find that neither the Transport Commissioner and his Regional transport Officers (RTOs) nor the traffic enforcement agency headed by the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Traffic in Kashmir and Jammu region knew best to deal with implementation of the Court directions banning movement of 25-year-old commercial vehicles,'' the court said.

It said though they have taken some steps pursuant to the Court directions passed at Jammu which are likely to take some time to bear fruit, they are, directed to prepare a list of registration certificates of these vehicles from their office records and to initiate proceedings to cancel their registration in accordance with the provisions of Motor Vehicles Act, which would render these vehicles immobile and prevent them plying on roads.

The court directed the Transport Commissioner to publish the list of such vehicles in the media and inform the owners of these vehicles that plying of these vehicles after cancellation of their registration certificates would render them liable to several punishments.

The court also noticed neither the Transport Commissioner nor RTO, Kashmir have taken any steps for rationalisation of bus routes and the result is lopsided plying of buses on various routes.

This has also prevented them from deploying the requisite number of mini buses from Pantha Chowk to Batamaloo-Soura causing considerable inconvenience to public at large.

The Transport Commissioner and RTO, Kashmir are directed to take immediate steps to make up the for deficiency of 48 mini buses on these routes within two weeks from the date of this order.

There has been no worthwhile action on construction of Batmaloo Aloochi Bagh round about which the Chief Engineer had submitted a revised plan with an estimated cost of Rs 10 crores.

However, the court directs the Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir to have the estimates of Chief Engineer, PWD re-examined in consultation with IGP, Traffic and to submit his report to the Government. The Divisional Commissioner will have two weeks for this and Coordination Committee is expected to resolve the issue and sanction the work in its next meeting thereafter.

UNI