Times of India: Kochi: Tuesday,
April 15, 2014.
Shortage of
funds has stopped the Regional Transport Office (RTO) from sending around 1,000
notices to traffic rule violators.
The RTO,
which contributed around Rs 240 crore to the state exchequer last fiscal,
requires about Rs 1,30,000 to purchase postal stamps. But it only has an
allocation of Rs 10,000 for the purpose.
"For
sending a notice, we require at least Rs 35. Normally, we have to send around
100 documents a day by post," said Ernakulam RTO B J Antony. In the last
four weeks, around 1,000 persons were found violating traffic rules.
Department
officials said that they were unable to communicate decisions taken by the
Regional Transport Authority (RTA) to concerned parties and there was a delay
in responding to Right to Information (RTI) requests.
RTA meetings
are convened by the district collector regularly and it is mandatory to the
decisions to concerned parties. "We require at least Rs 25,000 to meet
such expenses. Funds for the purpose come under the head of office expenses. We
can't divert funds from any other account heads," Antony said.
Replying to
an RTI application is a major headache for officials of the department.
"If a reply to the RTI application is delayed, we will have to pay a fine
of Rs 250 for each passing day. So we have to bear the cost of sending RTI
replies by post on our own,'' an official with the RT office said.
Since driving
licences are issued to applicants on the day of the test itself, authorities
have been able to save around Rs 3,500 a day. "We will give the licence
directly to the applicant.
The
applicants are also happy as they get the document on the day of the test
itself,'' Antony said. The department has now sent a request to headquarters to
allocate adequate amount for meeting office expenses immediately.
.JPG)
.JPG)
