DoT: No fitness certificates for vehicles found unfit
TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Bowing to the private bus lobby, the State government is now in the process of increasing the designated time period for phasing out buses, from the previous 15 years to 20 years. These buses will have to be phased out by 2015. The government will also put a ban on renewal and issue of fresh permits for the buses which are over 18 years old, from 2013-end.
Though the government’s move raises question on whether safety of passengers is being compromised, Director of Transport Arun Desai clarified that transport department will take utmost care to ensure the safety of passengers while issuing fitness certificates to the buses. “Though we have decided to increase the life span of buses, we will make sure that fitness certificates are not issued to those buses which are found technically unfit. Non-issuance of certificate will make them either to go for new bus or upgrade the same,” Desai clarified.
The Director said that the following a series of grievances raised by private bus owners, government has proposed to increase the life span of buses from the current 15 years to 20 years. He said that they will begin with 18-year-old buses this year move to 19- and 20-year-old buses by the end of three years.
Similarly, if one goes as per the current notification, the department would stop issuing new licences or renewals to the buses which are 19 years old, March 31, 2014, onwards. In case of 20-year-old buses, renewals would be stopped from March 31, 2015, onwards. Government would be shortly coming out with the notification in this regard.
The current notification states that government will not renew licences or issue fresh licences to buses which are 17, 16 and 15 years old, beginning from November, this year.
“While presenting the last budget, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had suggested that in public transport system buses should not be more than 15 years old. However, the bus owners pointed out that it is not economically viable for them to phase out buses that are 15 to 17 years old as they don’t run the required kilometers and are physically fit, as per the certificate provided by RTO,” Parrikar said.
“A subsidy has been provided for replacing the buses,” he said.
