Now, registration of mining machinery must

Now, registration of mining machinery must
HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, JAN 14
In a bid to curb illegal mining, the Transport Department has made the registration of mining machinery mandatory in the state.
The decision was taken in a review meeting held on Thursday in which it was pointed out many such machineries are being used for illegal mining without registration.
Transport Director Arun Desai said that machineries like JCB, shovels and others will now necessarily be registered with the department.
He said that department has came across many such machineries which are used for illegal mining’s but failed to do inquiry as the owners name remained undisclosed.
Meanwhile, the meeting has also come up with a strong decision to chargsheet all those who fail to pay the compound fees within a fortnight of challans are issued.
“The procedure gets a full stop once challans are issued…there is no follow up…people don’t turn up to pay the fined amount,” Desai said.
Recently the department had kicked off a drive on October 1, 2010 to curb the irregularities of erring drivers and conductors, in which they have till date issued 2890 challans by collecting Rs 22 lakhs as revenue.
The enforcers found major violations in the states two major cities-Panjim and Margao.
“The situation is going out of control everyday…the private bus owners have no control over the buses,” Desai said adding that rather then accusing the department the bus operators need to come out with some solution to improve the bus transport in the state.