Hyderabad: The controversy over the legitimacy of the private agencies implementing the Rs 2,000-crore High Security Number Plate project in the state refuses to die down with the state government choosing to ignore violations by the firms.
The situation worsened when the two Central government testing institutes— Automotive Research Association of India and Central Research Road Institute— suspended the Type Approval Certificate and Conformity of Production (CoP) certifications issued by them to the consortium Utsav Safety System Pvt. Ltd. and Link Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd, the private agencies jointly implementing the project.
On January 15, ARAI issued a notice to Utsav, suspending the CoP for HSRP after observing multiple misconducts under the Central Motor Vehicles Rule. The CRRI, meanwhile, had suspended the TAC issued by it in mid-December, 2013.
As per CMVR Rule 50, TAC and CoP of HSRP is mandatory for a manufacturing company to be eligible to apply for tender for the HSRP project.
The APSRTC had launched the HSRP project in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy from December 11, 2013, for new vehicles. The government plans to cover other districts of the state in a phased manner.
“We have not received any notice nor do we have any clue about the suspension of TAC and CoP of HSRP,” said a senior APSRTC official associated with project.
Questions are also being raised about the state government ignoring former chief secretary Minnie Mathew’s note against awarding the project to the Utsav-Link consortium that has a chequered history in implementing similar projects in others states, that too at a higher price than the other states.
Even the High Court of Himachal Pradesh had cancelled a similar contract given to the Utsav-Link consortium in HP. Currently, the case is pending in SC.
The Supreme Court had earlier issued contempt notices to the Andhra Pradesh government for implementing the scheme in the state in violation of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989, and for disobeying its orders.
In its December 19, 2013 order, the apex court had issued contempt notices to the principal secretary (transport) D. Laxmi Parthasarathy and transport commissioner G. Anantha Ramu, and had sought responses on the violations.
The SC had stated that the ATRP plates only looked like HSRP but did not have the same features.
The general public might not know the difference and would buy ATRP plates not knowing that they were not the same as HSRP, which is required to be fixed under CMVR, 1989.
Thus the very purpose of the HSRP scheme would be defeated.
The violations observed by the institutes were that Utsav did not have complete control over safety measures in HSRP, while its partner was selling sub-standard number plates manufactured in non-approved manufacturing units, which did not have four of the six security features.
