Rajahmundry: The road transport authorities (RTA) have seized over 110 buses plying for long distance travel for a series of violations in the last few days following a drive taken up to ensure safety of the passengers as per the norms of the Motor Vehicle Act in the aftermath of Volvo bus tragedy claiming 45 lives in Mahbubnagar districts recently.
The authorities have noticed a series of violations including running the buses as stage carriages while taking permit for contract carriage, transporting commercial goods, failing to maintain genuine list of passengers, allowing the passengers to board the bus beyond its seating capacity, not having second driver and if any driver is there, he will not be having a valid driving license, carrying first aid box without having any medicines, installing fire extinguishers which do not function, failing to display emergency exists prominently, keeping hammers, drunken driving and failure to impose regulation on speed.
In East Godavari, the RTA authorities found many of the violations and booked several cases and seized about 40 buses.
A majority of the private transport operators are violating the norm of contract carriage by stopping the bus at different stages.
The operators have come up with a new practice by sending SMS to the cell phones of their passengers giving details about the places of origin and destination, timings, seat numbers and the cost.
There will be no issue of hard copy of the ticket to the passengers. Efforts are on to curb drunken driving as the RTA authorities along with the police are carrying out surprise checks on drivers with breath analysers to find out whether the driver is driving the vehicle under the influence of alcohol.
Authorities are also keeping check on chassis number, engine number and registration number of the vehicles to avoid any tampering and duplication.
East Godavari deputy transport commissioner G. Krishnaiah said, “We are keeping close tab on vehicles to ensure compliance with all safety norms.”
In West Godavari, the authorities seized nearly 70 vehicles and major violation includes running buses as stage carriage while taking permit as contract carriage.
