Seemandhra vehicle owners take the high road to Hyderabad

Samaikyandhra stir forces vehicle owners to come to city and T-districts to get their vehicles registered

Ever since the Samaikyandhra agitation commenced, many vehicle-owners in Seemandhra have had to come all the way to the capital, or to neighbouring districts in Telangana to get fitness certificates, permit renewals and other release orders.

This, thanks to the agitation by transport employees in the region against the bifurcation of the State.

Everyday, about 300 different transactions take place in each Regional Transport Office. Now with the strike in progress, vehicle registrations, driving licence issue and renewals and other transactions have stopped.

In order to avoid inconvenience to a few transport category vehicles, the Transport Department had permitted vehicle owners to get three transactions – fitness certificate, permit renewals and detection release orders – at any office in capital or in certain Telangana districts.

“Special orders were issued in August, instructing us to issue emergency fitness certificate clearances, permit renewals for vehicles like ambulances, hazardous material-carrying trucks, oil tankers and heavy goods vehicles. Since then, over 100 vehicle owners from Seemandhra have approached different RTA offices in Hyderabad,” a senior Ranga Reddy transport official said.

However, truck owners are not happy with the department extending the facility to just three transactions.

“We have purchased four new trucks to operate them under a contract with an oil company. However, authorities are not registering the vehicles citing the ongoing agitation. Unless vehicles are registered, the oil company will not sign the contract. It is the case with many truck and other transport-vehicle owners,” says Y.V. Eswara Rao, general secretary of the AP Lorry Owners Association.

Authorities had spent huge money and boasted about introducing the three-tier online system in the department, enabling vehicle owners to get their work done at any RTA office in the State with a click of a button. But this service is not being extended during critical situations like the current one. Our livelihoods are at stake, says a truck owner.

However, RTA officials claim that there are technical and official limitations to extending the service across the State, including mandatory physical inspection of vehicles by respective motor vehicle inspectors, etc.