Staff Reporter :
Unfit vehicles and drivers are dominating the roads and highways across the country for years before the nose of the police and concerned authority, but there seems no drastic remedy to end it.
Different organisations and academicians have been continuously raising their voices against this issue because such rundown vehicles and drivers without valid documents contributing to the unabated road accidents, causing a heavy death toll each year.
Statistics shows that there are around 51,10,786 vehicles of 20 modes in the country and of them, only 5.40 lakh vehicles have fitness certificates. The number of unfit vehicles is increasing every year.
On the other hand, there are about 30.20 lakh drivers for the total vehicles and of them, 21 lakh drivers don’t have valid documents to ply any vehicles or transports.
Sources said that these fake drivers have been plying vehicles under the patronage of powerful quarters.
Even it is alleged that BRTA and police are helpless before the quarters, which is ultimately risking the lives of many.
Though police conduct drives in different times to seize the unfit vehicles, it could not glean maximum outputs to keep the unfit vehicles off the roads and streets because it is alleged that the owners are of these vehicles are more powerful.
BRTA sources said that though the government is offering various opportunities including reprieve of taxes, the owners
of these vehicles are not obtaining fitness certificates of their vehicles. Even BRTA is sending SMS to the vehicle owners to update their fitness certificates, the authority is not getting adequate response.
BRTA issued circular to update the vehicle papers in three phases since July 2020 without any fine, but the response is unsatisfactory and a segment of owners are not paying the taxes regularly.
Such reluctance of the vehicle owners to update their papers increase the number of vehicles across the country by leaps and bounds.
Amid such a situation, BRTA has taken a number of initiatives including frequent drives against unfit transports, cancellation of vehicle registration to take drastic action against the vehicles.
Sources said that the law bars not to issue fitness certificate of the vehicles without proper testing, but many rundown vehicles are being tagged with fitness certificate through various means.
BRTA said that they have formed a three-member oversight committee to impose strict control on not issuing any fitness certificate without proper tests.
In a circular, BRTA notified that the circle offices will not issue any fitness certificate without tests. The committee will monitor it and submit regular reports to the BRTA Chairman.
But it is alleged that despite such circular or monitoring committee, fitness certificates are being issued against the unfit vehicles.
Meanwhile, police sources said that about 90.69 percent road accidents take place due to the unskilled drivers, reckless driving and flouting of laws.
Police statistics shows that 86.33 percent accidents occur because of desperate and reckless driving while 4.36 percent accidents happen due to wrong way of overtaking.
Road safety organisations have demanded to the government to take immediate action against such irregularities in order to prevent rising number of accidents across the country.
