Bhubaneswar: Fearing public anger, the state government is planning to make a U-turn from its decision to impose heavy fines mandated by the amended Motor Vehicles (MV) Act. Transport Secretary G. Srinivas hinted about this here Wednesday.
BJP ruled Gujarat has cut down the penalty for traffic violations by nearly 50 per cent.
“This is a Central Act. We are examining what other states are doing. We will study the notifications issued by other states and based on that we will take a call,” Srinivas told reporters here.
The Secretary was on a surprise visit to Bhubaneswar Regional Transport Office (RTO)-I here Wednesday to check the steps taken for fast-tracking the issuance of driving licences and other documents to the public.
“We want people to get DLs and LLs without hassles. I came to check that. We have doubled the number of counters and they are working till 9 pm. But there is still rush. We are working on how counters can be increased and things streamlined so that people get documents easily,” he said. Srinivas admitted that some brokers are acting as facilitators at the RTO office. “We are trying to stop this,” he added.
Asked about relaxation in checking vehicles, he said, “We have asked officials to relax the norms for documents, but there will be no let-up in tackling drunk driving, triple riding and using phones while driving.”
The Secretary had urged the DGP and the Police Commissioner Tuesday not to harass the public unnecessarily and not to collect fines except for using mobile phones while driving and drunk driving.