PANAJI: The transport department on Tuesday took 16 of its services — including renewing permits — online, enabling citizens who require these services to access them from home during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Transport minister Mauvin Godinho said that the service would be fully operational from Friday.
Speaking to reporters, Godinho said that the transport department has as many as 174 services, and that the department would gradually take them all online.
The 16 services which are made available online include new goods carriage permits, new national permit authorisations, new temporary permits, renewal of goods carriage permits, renewal of national permit authorisations, cancellation of goods carriage permits, cancellation of national permit authorisations, cancellation of temporary permits, duplicate goods carriage permits, duplicate national permit authorisations, duplicate temporary permits, and transfer of national permit authorisations.
“To avail of these services, people would have to visit the RTO offices, but now, they can sit at home and avail of them,” Godinho said.
Meanwhile, the minister also said that 59 people have been paid compensation under the Goa state interim compensation to road accident victims scheme, which was notified in 2013.
He also said that the state government is considering providing relaxations to apply under the scheme.
As of now, a victim or their family has to apply within six months of an accident.
“Even if they apply after one year of the accident, they will get the funds,” he said.
Speaking on panchayats, Godinho, who is also panchayats minister, said they have asked the local bodies to take up pre-monsoon work.
He also said that panchayats should reach out to people in distress due to the pandemic.
“For the first time, we have authorised small panchayats to spend Rs 2 lakh and bigger panchayats to spend as much as Rs 5 lakh to help people during the pandemic,” he said.