New Posts To Be Created In Transport Department

HT Bureau

GUWAHATI, Aug 2: Chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday asked transport minister Parimal Suklabaidya to hold a meeting with PWD and Transport department to ensure introduction of necessary safety norms at the accident prone areas to bring down cases of road mishaps, even as the state government is contemplating to create new jobs in the transport department.

Taking a review of the transport department with the district transport officers in Janata Bhawan here on Tuesday, Sarma asked the transport minister to hold a meeting with the departments to assess and analyse the road accidents in the accident prone areas and suggest measures to introduce more safety norms to save precious lives.

Taking into consideration the number of accident related fatalities, chief minister Sarma observed that the districts which recorded more than 100 fatalities caused by road accidents in the last one year, the deputy commissioners of the concerned district should convene a meeting with all the stakeholders and find out ways to cut down the accidents.

He emphasised that a letter to that effect will also be sent from the chief minister to the respective DCs.

Moreover, since most of the road related fatalities are caused for not wearing helmets or not using seat belts, the transport department and police would jointly undertake a massive fortnight campaign before the upcoming Durga Puja to generate awareness among the people to adhere to safety rules and save lives.

The chief minister also asked the transport department to bring more services under the category of ‘Contactless Services’. Highlighting that presently 40 services of the transport department are there under contact less services, the chief minister asked the department to include five more services under the category. “From 15th August onwards all the services in the transport department will be online as manual services will be offered only to those customers whose bio-metric identities are withheld by law,” Sarma said.

During the meeting, the chief minister also asked the DTOs to ensure that before the expiry of vehicle fitness certificates, the customers receive mobile messages. Similarly, before 30 days of the expiry of validity of learners’ license, the customers should also get mobile messages. All DTOs should convene a meeting with all the transporters to ensure that all vehicles plying in Assam be registered in Assam within one year even if they are registered outside.

The chief minister also asked the transport department to intensify fines from overloading vehicles.

He also asked the department to have talks with the finance department to facilitate use of digital payment gateways like ‘paytm’ to realise fines from the defaulters. Since digital know-how is becoming very important for conveniently delivering services to the customers, Sarma also asked the transport department to take steps for the creation of new posts in the department to take contactless services of the department to a new level.