KL Report
SRINAGAR
The Minister of State for Transport Abdul Ghani Kohli Monday informed the Legislative Council that all 25 years old or older commercial, passenger vehicles have been taken off the road and all 15 years old or older passenger vehicles have to undergo mechanical fitness test in a year, an official statement said.
The Minister was replying to a calling attention notice by Dr Shehnaz Ganai regarding increase in the road traffic accidents across the State.
“Quick rescue operation teams headed by respective District Development Commissioners have been constituted in the hilly districts across the State. Special petrol vehicles fitted with modern gadgets have been allotted to Traffic Police for the deployment on National High Ways i .e. Srinagar-Jammu, Batote-Kishtwar and Jammu-Poonch to check traffic violation like over speeding, overloading and driving under the influence of liquor,” the minister said.
The Minister said that ban on purchase of 4-wheeled Tata-407 Mini Buses has been imposed in erstwhile District Doda (Doda, Kishtwar, Ramban) Reasi, Rajouri, Poonch and Udhampur with effect from 2010 to avoid frequent road accidents. He said procedure of driving license to drive a public Service Vehicle has been made more stringent.
He said that alternate roads have been developed to link Kishtwar-Doda region with Kashmir via Sinthan top Kokarnag, Mughal Road has been constructed to facilitate shortest road link for twin districts of Rajouri-Poonch with Kashmir Valley and Kishtwar-Kokarnag road as alternate link between Jammu Division and Kashmir Division.
“Road Safety Programmes by Motor Vehicles Department are being regularly held to educate the stakeholders including students, transporters, drivers who are directly involved in the road safety traffic management,” he said. He further informed that during the current year 365 programmes about road safety have been conducted in schools and colleges while 485 general awareness programmes for drivers and other road users have been held in which 21296 drivers were medically checked.
