Staff crunch at RTO, Kerala Police step in to help

Kochi: The Regional Transport Office  in the district is reeling under severe staff crunch and hence action against erring vehicles is delayed.  The police have, therefore, stepped up the drive  against autos that ply without meters.

“Currently,  while there are around four lakh vehicles in the district,  we have only 80 staff  who include 18 assistant motor vehicle inspectors (AMVs), seven motor vehicle inspectors (MVs), one joint RTO and one RTO. Earlier,  there was one staff member for every 1,000 vehicles. Today, we have one  against every 25,000 vehicles. The situation is worsening because daily 100 new vehicles are being registered in the district,” said Ernakulam Regional Transport Officer K.M. Shaji.

He said he was unaware of cases pending against 2,000 erring autos alone in the district  as  claimed by Deputy Commissioner of Police Harishanker the other day.   Mr  Harishanker had told DC that as per the RTO,  cases against 2,000 offending  autos could not be processed due to staff shortage.  Due to this the police had started  delivering the  RTO notices to the autos that violated the  meter rules.

Mr Shaji said, “we definitely face staff shortage. We are processing the cases forwarded by the police. But we cannot do it in haste. We welcome the police move to help us in delivering the notices to the erring autos. Anyway, the RTA board is the authority to take the final action against the violators,”  he said.