Family members of V. Srinivas from Vinukonda were stranded in Ongole on Wednesday night as Road Transport Department staff seized a sports utility vehicle (SUV) rented by him for going on a pilgrimage to Tirumala.
The vehicle was seized by the staff reportedly with a view to be part of the convoy of Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy during his visit to the city on Friday.
Fretting and fuming over the unsavoury incident, Mr. Srinivas and other family members said it was an ordeal for them as the vehicle was forcibly taken away by the staff without their knowledge when they were having refreshments in a restaurant midway through their journey.
“’We suffered anxious moments before another vehicle was arranged for our onward journey’‘, Mr. Srinivas said along with his wife and two children. Even their luggage was taken away in haste by the staff. They don’t blame the staff at the grassroots level as they had acted only at the behest of their higher-ups, he added. The family was a worried lot till the luggage was handed over later by the staff.
Two suspended
Meanwhile, Assistant Motor Vehicles Inspector A. Sandhya and P. Tirupala Reddy, a Home Guard attached to the Transport Department, were placed under suspension by higher officials after the Chief Minister's Office took a serious note of the incident.
Deputy Transport Commissioner B. Krishnaveni said the vehicle was seized as it did not have fitness certificate (FC) and later returned to its owner with a condition to obtain FC for the vehicle before plying it once again on the road.
She said the staff members were under immense pressure in view of shortage of SUVs in the backward Prakasam district to arrange vehicles for the Chief Minister’s convoy. The department was also entrusted with the onerous task of arranging a fleet of vehicles using its “good offices” for handing over them to the District Rural Development Agency and Mission for Elimination of Poverty in Municipal Areas (MEPMA) for Friday’s Chief Minister’s meeting with the members of self help groups (SHGs), she explained.
Blaming the department staff for the unpleasant incident, YSR Congress Party Regional Coordinator and former Energy Minister Balineni Srinivasa Reddy tendered an apology to Mr. Srinivas’s family. Arrangements were made for darshan of Lord Venkateswara by the family members at Tirumala, he added.
