Srinagar, Dec 23 (KNS): In a significant development, the Jammu and Kashmir government Wednesday claimed that it is going to start two mega driving schools one each in Srinagar and Jammu.
“We are going to start two mega driving schools one each in Srinagar and Jammu. Nearly 100 kanals of land has been identified in Jammu Kuck village while as in Srinagar, land has been identified in Ganderbal area,” Minister for transport Abdul Gani Kohli told KNS over phone.
He said that the funding of project will be done by the government of India. “We are forwarding the details of project to the union transport ministry. These driving schools will give proper training to learners so that they get the license through proper procedure,”
He further said that around 30 pollution checking centers have been closed for failing to keep the required infrastructure available. “Only few pollution checking centers are functioning in J&K that have the required infrastructure available. We recently closed these centers since they were issuing pollution certificates without following the procedure,” Kohli added.
Meanwhile official sources told KNS that two main constituents of the transport department, SRTC and Motor Vehicles Department have failed to meet their target with figures depicting decrease in their revenue realization.
According to the figures during the year 2013-2014, the Motor Vehicles Department has realized revenue of Rs 133.74 crore against a target of Rs 151.Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp Channel60 crore and during 2014-15, revenue of Rs 92.87 crore was realized against a target of Rs 159.00 crore by November-2014. Around one lakh vehicles were registered during 2014-2015 in contrary the department has failed to achieve its target.
During 2011-2012, about 50509 licenses were issued by Regional Transport Kashmir while in 2012-13 its number was 45,913. In 2014-15, around 25000 driving licenses were issued. Sources said less number of driving licenses was issued in the previous year due to last year September floods.
Sources said that the SRTC is also running in losses for the past several years as there has been significant decrease in its revenue and is lying almost defunct.
Its employees have been often protesting against the government seeking their salaries while as government had blamed them for losses in SRTC.
Sources said a lot of “illegal” appointments have been made in the department and it has to spent lakhs of rupees annually on employees’ salaries thus putting extra burden on the state exchequer. “One side the transport department revenue has declined while as the amount being spent on employees salaries have increased,” an official of transport department said. “The department’s functioning is in disarray as its officials are not accountable to anyone since department’s performance has been poor for the last few years,” sources added. (KNS)