Transport Minister Govind Singh Thakur said that the state government is committed to check the overloading for which the transport department is taking effective steps. To ensure safe and comfortable travel to the commuters, the government would publish 500 new routes in next ten days and allocated at the earliest. Whereas, 124 already published new bus routes would be allocated within a week. He said that besides expansion of the state road transport fleet, the HRTC would start tempo taxi services on small link routes for which a plan is being formulated by the department. Under the scheme, the owners of the local vehicles would sign up an agreement with the HRTC to providing transport facility to the commuters. This would not only help in getting rid of overloading but would also generate employment opportunities to the local people.The Minister said that after the tragic bus accident in Banjar on 22 June, the state government is taking more effective efforts for ensuring road safety by checking over loading, rash and drunken driving and identifying black spots, which are the main reasons for the road accidents.He said that the transport department and HRTC have already initiated various effective steps to strengthen the public transport system including issuing taxi and maxi permits to the unemployed youths besides contract and stage carriage permits for the buses.
The Minister said that the state government has issued thousands of taxi permits to the illegible applicants which were lying pending with the transport department for many years. Similarly, contract carriage permits were not given for the luxury buses in the state for many years due to which the bus operators were forced for registration of their vehicles outside the state thereby resulting in revenue loss besides inconvenience to general public.Now, the state government is formulating a scheme for regularising these buses plying unlawfully, which would also help in checking the tax evasion, he added.Govind Singh Thakur said that the state government is endeavouring to provide relief to the passengers, especially the students who are facing problems after strict action adopted against overloading in the buses. The HRTC buses are being plied on small routes also besides their regular routes whereas temporary routes are also being given to the HRTC buses and private bus operators as per demandThe Transport Minister said that a special road safety campaign would be started in the third week of July under which the meetings of the state and district level road safety authorities would be organised to take up realistic steps for checking the road accidents.