Deputy Commissioner A.B. Ibrahim on Thursday instructed officials of some government departments to ensure that select public transport vehicles fix global positioning system (GPS) equipment by the end of September.
It applied to vehicles transporting rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene under the public distribution system (PDS), vehicles of oil companies transporting diesel, petrol, kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), sand transporting vehicles and private and KSRTC buses.
The equipment in vehicles under the PDS system would help monitor the movement of vehicles and to ascertain whether they had delivered the goods to all fair price shops or not. It would also help monitor the parking of such vehicles en route for long time without valid reason.
Deputy Director of Department of Mines and Geology Nagendrappa told the meeting that about 700-800 vehicles transporting sand had the equipment fixed now.
An official of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. said 180 vehicles of the company had the equipment fixed. An official of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. said the company had 80 vehicles for which the process of fixing the equipment was under progress.
The DC instructed that all buses, including private and KSRTC, should fix the equipment, as it would help to know if they were plying on the routes permitted or not. It would also be known if the buses covered the distance allotted or cut short the trips.
Canara Bus Owners’ Association president Rajavarma Ballal said the association had fixed the equipment to all buses under it in 2010-11 at an estimated cost of Rs. 17 lakh. But there was none under the Regional Transport Authority or Regional Transport Office to monitor their movements, hence the system and their maintenance had failed. Mr. Ibrahim said a proper monitoring system would be ensured this time.
