Haryana refuses to pay for roadways buses fined in Delhi

Chandigarh, July 13: The Haryana government has refused to foot the bill for the traffic violation tickets issued by the Delhi Police to state roadways buses in the national capital.

Director General (State Transport) Arun Kumar said that it was not possible to meet the demand of the Haryana Roadways employees' union that the tickets for various violations be paid by the state government and not by the driver concerned, according to a department spokesman.

Arun Kumar said that the state government cannot encourage violation of traffic rules, and safe driving was a pre-condition of the driving license which needed to be obeyed.

The staff of Haryana Roadways buses had refused to ply their buses in Delhi territory June 15 to protest against "excessive" traffic tickets being issued against Haryana Roadways buses by Delhi Police. All roadways buses had dropped passengers at the entry points to Delhi along the state border.

Union leaders alleged that the Delhi Police was trying to single out Haryana Roadways buses for issuing traffic violation tickets as the roadways staff was not allowing free travel facility to police personnel in the buses.

At a meeting with the roadways employees' union, Kumar suggested that a corpus fund be created by the employees by contributing a day's salary for payment of excessive challans by Delhi Police, the spokesman said.

He also suggested that a joint committee of Haryana Roadways officers and representatives of the union be constituted to ascertain whether the traffic tickets issued by Delhi Police were appropriate or not. Videography of the traffic tickets being issued will be done, he said.

The union had demanded that the Haryana government should bear the cost of the traffic tickets for rash driving, over-speeding, wrong parking and all other violations of traffic rules by drivers in Delhi.