Proposals for augmentation of fleet gathering dust

19/03/2019

Frequent and tragic road accidents have failed to shake the conscience of even the Governor’s Administration as only 14 buses of State Road Transport Corporation (SRTC) are plying in three mountainous districts of Kishtwar, Doda and Ramban as against the actual requirement of nearly 100 vehicles thereby leading to uncontrolled overloading in the private passenger vehicles. The worrisome situation is prevailing as neither serious efforts were made to take the proposals vis-a-vis augmenting the fleet of the Corporation in these hilly parts of Jammu region to the logical conclusion nor strict implementation of directions issued from time to time was ensured. A total of 34 SRTC buses of different capacity were being operated in these three districts in 2010 but the fleet declined considerably during all these years due to absolute non-seriousness of the successive Governments and presently only 14 vehicles are plying two in Ramban and six each in Doda and Kishtwar.
During these years 20 SRTC buses developed snag and were sent to main workshop at Jammu for repairs but no serious efforts were made to re-deploy these vehicles after rectification of faults leading to sharp decline in the fleet of SRTC in these districts. Merely 14 vehicles are plying in these vast districts at a time when the actual requirement of SRTC buses of different capacity is nearly 100”, they said while disclosing that there are 10 new routes in Ramban, 22 in Doda and 26 in Kishtwar for which no SRTC vehicle has been deployed although requirement of 10 for Ramban, 26 for Doda and 29 for Kishtwar has already been projected officially. It is a matter of concern that even during Governor’s Rule the concerned authorities have failed to pay required attention towards the deployment of more SRTC buses in erstwhile Doda district as per the requirement projected by the field agencies and it seems that frequent tragic road accidents mainly due to overloading of the private passenger vehicles have failed to shake the conscience of even the Governor’s Administration. No doubt after every major accident either proposal was formulated or directions were issued for augmenting the fleet of the Corporation but no follow-up action was ensured on the same by those who remained at the helm of affairs in the Transport Department.

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