Dakshina Kannada Regional Transport Officer C. Mallikarjuna has asked all the school vehicles to comply with all the guidelines related to safety of children.
Mr. Mallikarjuna told presspersons here on Saturday that said buses transporting schoolchildren should follow guidelines, including display of yellow board and have emergency exit points. The autorickshaws should not carry more than six children in each vehicle, he said.
Mr. Mallikarjuna said there were about 15 complaints regarding overloading and other violations against vehicles operated by private operators and by schools.
Beacon light
Mr. Mallikarjuna said chairmen of boards and corporations of the State government would not be allowed to use beacon light over their vehicles. However, the government has permitted MPs to use beacon lights over their vehicles, he said.
Asked about the vehicle of B. Nagaraj Shetty that had been lying at the Circuit House since Mr. Shetty's resignation as chairman of Coastal Development Authority, Mr. Mallikarjuna said suitable action would be taken after discussing it with the Deputy Commissioner.
Crackdown
Mr. Mallikarjuna also announced a crackdown on vehicle owners who register their vehicles in other states in order to avoid paying the comparatively higher Life Time Tax in Karnataka.
He said there were many vehicles in the city that had been registered in other States, especially in Puducherry and Kerala. The lifetime tax in these States is very low compared to the tax collected by Karnataka.
“While we collect around 20 per cent as a tax on a vehicle estimated at Rs. 20 lakh, only 1 per cent of the cost of vehicle is collected in Puducherry,” Mr. Mallikarjuna said. It was illegal to ply such vehicles on the road here without paying the lifetime tax, he added.
The users of vehicles had been asked to pay the lifetime tax by September 30 after which a drive would be started to impose fine on owners of such vehicles. Such a trend, Mr. Mallikarjuna said, was not just confined to Mangalore. “But as Mangalore is nearer to Puducherry, a lot many go from here to get their vehicles registered by paying less tax on the basis of temporary address proof,” he said and added that Puducherry collected one per cent as tax for all types of vehicles as against the three different slabs offered in Karnataka.
‘Pay tax'
Mr. Mallikarjuna said owners of the vehicles registered in other States should approach the RTO and pay the tax and get their vehicles registered in Mangalore. He said once the tax was paid, the RTO would take up the responsibility of registering the vehicle by verifying the documents from the RTO where the vehicle had been registered. “We will refund to the vehicle owner the tax collected from him when he applies for no objection certificate once he gets transferred to any other State,” he said.
Mr. Mallikarjuna said the RTO had stopped issuing driving licences to residents of Kerala. This had been done as there has been misuse of driving licences issued from here. “There were inquiries to our office with regard to a few persons accused of involvement in terrorist activities,” he said. However, Mr. Mallikarjuna said they would accept applications when they were sure about the genuineness of the applicant. “In case of transfers, we need the authentication by the office he was working along with the voter identity card,” he said.
Mr. Mallikarjun said the RTO had been going ahead issuing driving licence in the form of smart cards to new applicants. In case of the old driving licences, the process would start once they got the staff required to carry out the task.
