A section of Motor Vehicles department (MVD) officials are trying to scuttle online systems meant to offer services fast without the involvement of agents, Minister for Transport Antony Raju has said.
E-governance will be rolled out as scheduled, to lessen procedural hassles and root out corruption. Unscrupulous officials who attempt to derail it will be shown their place. Members of the public have the ‘right to service’, and officials, for whose salary a bulk of revenue is spent, must do justice to their duty. Sadly, some officials prefer to be rude and adopt delaying tactics, he said. The Minister was inaugurating the 54th State meeting of Kerala MVD Gazetted Officers’ Association here on Saturday.
AI-enabled cameras
On the 725 Artificial Intelligence-enabled cameras that will be operational in Kerala shortly, Mr. Raju said it would ensure objective/impartial enforcement of rules, since traffic rule violations by anyone, irrespective of their status, would automatically invite penalty. The system will also help apprise rule violators of the offence with evidence. In addition, dashcams are being popularised in vehicles to help ascertain the cause of accidents. It was one such dashcam footage from a vehicle that shed light on what appears prima facie to be a KSRTC bus swerving to one side, causing the death of two motorbike riders in Palakkad over a month ago. The 116 new buses of the KSRTC Swift will have (dual) dashcams, he said.
The Minister exhorted MVD personnel to be proactive in preventing road accidents, since they have details of black spots in the State. They also ought to act in tandem with the police and agencies like the Public Works Department (PWD). Mr. Raju further referred to two decisions that the government had taken to boost the morale of MVD personnel — to ensure that only uniformed/technically-qualified personnel were posted as Motor Vehicle Inspectors and Joint RTOs (based on a 2019 directive of the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety) and to reinstate the Asoka Sthambham in their uniform. He further said that action against officials would henceforth be taken only on the basis of investigations, in the wake of vested interests often filing complaints against officials with high integrity.
Association general secretary A.S. Vinod said bodies floated by goods carriers and others often went on the offensive against MVD officials, when the latter initiated action against overloading. He pointed to how a section of officials were trying to derail efforts to implement online services in the department. Their aim is to unduly help agents who charge a premium, he added.
Jebi Cherian, president of the association, and Ashfaq Ahmed, president of All India Federation of MVD Technical Executive Officers’ Association spoke on the occasion.
