Nagpur: The Ministry of Road Transportation and Highway (Morth) has expanded the validity of motorized vehicle documents such as SIM (DL), Registration Certificate (RC), Permit and Fitness Certificate until September 30, 2021, given the covid pandemic.
However, RTOS cannot apply the ministry’s direction.
“This department collects delays for renewal of various documents, including fitness and permit certificates,” said Transporters.
This is because the National Informatics Center (NIC), which manages the website and transportation software systems, has not been updated in the fitness validity system, permission (all types), licenses, or other relevant documents.
As a result, these document holders end up paying a large fine.
Vilas Bhalekar, Leader of the Autorickshaw Union, said that even automated drivers were forced to pay delay fees for permit renewal.
Kishore Somkuwar, a driver of the Autorickshaw, claimed that the department collected delay costs for the update of his autorickshaw permit.
Toi also received similar complaints from private bus operators.
S Neha, a transporter, shows, “After our bus fitness certificate was carried away last week, we could not obtain permission to operate the trip next week.” Rot staff said the government had announced relaxation in the event of such documents during the Covid period, but the changes have not been made in their system, so they cannot allow exceptions even for one day if some documents have been left behind, he shows.
Some transporter claimed to have paid a fine to the RTO fly squad to operate with late documents, which they could not renew because of the covid-19-induced locking.
Clerical staff of the three transportation offices – cities, east and countryside – recognize that their website and department system do not consider expirious documents from February 2020 to date.
They claim that because they face public wrath.
“People come with the notice of expanded validity issued by Morth and we agree that they are not wrong.
But we are helpless because the Department of Transportation’s website managed by NIC does not consider expirious documents.
Therefore we collect delays for various Documents such as permit updates, fitness certificates etc., “they claim.
A senior official from City RTO confirmed this and said that the department had raised this problem with the commissioner of the State Transportation and NIC.
The official, however, said that they were considering the validity of the learning license and all applicants were being considered to take a permanent SIM test.