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Transport dept cracks whip on polluting vehicles

Last Updated 22 April 2015, 21:36 IST

After receiving a rap from the High Court over exceeding noise levels in the City, the Transport Department conducted several enforcement drives and checked about 29,000 vehicles across the city  in the past three weeks and issued challans close to 1,500 vehicles which crossed the permissible decibel levels prescribed under the Motor Vehicle Act.

Even on Wednesday, the department officials conducted an enforcement drive at Cubbon Park, Vidhana Soudha area and its surroundings.

Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, a day before the hearing of the case in the High Court, Transport Commissioner Ramegowda said the department has managed to check a total of 28,912 vehicles for sound pollution between April 1 and 22. Among them, 1,517 vehicles were found to have shrill horns which cross the limit of 80-90 Dba specified in the Act, he added.

He said the drive was carried out because of the increasing air and noise pollution and cited severe staff shortage as the reason for this. He said that there are 930 vacancies out of a total of 2,820 sanctioned posts. “We have been working relentlessly to carry out this drive with the help of Home Guards and other staff,” he said.

“Soon, a notification is expected for the recruitment of 150 motor vehicle inspectors for the department and the Cabinet has already approved it. A notification will be issued by the KPSC soon,” he added.

According to the statistics given by the officials, Jnanabharati RTO has booked the maximum number of air pollution cases. It has registered 803 such cases and collected Rs 3,25,900 as fine. Bangalore (East) has checked the lowest number of vehicles and booked only 45 vehicles for air pollution and registered 18 cases.

The officials said that this was because of shortage of inspectors in the area. For usage of shrill horns, Electronic City RTO booked the maximum number of cases with 340 violations and Jnanabharati came a close second with 317 cases. A total of 1,095 horns were removed physically by RTO staff from a total of 1,517 cases booked, according to the statistics. Between last April last year and this March, 9,818 cases of air pollution and 3960 cases of sound pollution were booked. The department has managed to achieve 18 per cent of this figure for air pollution and 38 per cent for sound pollution cases in less than a month. “We will continue the enforcement drive in the coming days,” Ramegowda said.

He said the government is considering a proposal to phase out two-stroke autorickshaws which cause air and noise pollution. The proposal includes an increase in the subsidy from the existing Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000 to two-stroke autorickshaw owners to purchase new four-stroke autorickshaws.

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(Published 22 April 2015, 21:36 IST)

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