Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Saturday announced that new District Transport Officers (DTOs), in place of RTA Secretaries will be appointed in every district to ensure that Regional Transport Authority (RTA), which is said to be a corruption hub, too works in a transparent and corruption free manner. Addressing a news conference, Khattar said that on Navaratri, he had pledged to eradicate corruption in every government department after ensuring implementation of Zero tolerance against corruption in RTAs. 

Khattar said this is the second initiative of the State government as per which separate DTOs will be appointed in the RTA offices. Earlier HCS officers were appointed as the Chief Executive Officers of Zila Parishad. He said that the DTOs will be appointed within the next two days and now all 22 districts in the State will have DTOs instead of Regional Transport Authority Secretaries (RTAs).

The CM said after ensuring the elimination of  the role of ‘Undesirable Contact Men’ in Tehsil offices, now the general public will also get rid of  the problem of middlemen in RTA offices, be it for making driving licenses or getting vehicles passed.  Furthermore, after Rohtak, six more Inspection and Certification Centres to inspect and check fitness of vehicles will be opened at six more districts including Ambala, Karnal, Hisar, Gurugram, Faridabad and Rewari, said Khattar.

He said automated driving test tracks will be set up in 11 districts namely Kaithal, Bahadurgarh, Rohtak, Faridabad, Nuh, Bhiwani, Karnal, Rewari, Sonipat, Palwal, and Yamunanagar,  where driving skills will be tested and the entire test process will be computerized. As a result of this people will not have to approach any middlemen for getting their licenses made. He said that a provision of Rs 30 crore has been made for this and these centres will be opened within a period of one year.

Similarly, to keep a vigil on overloading of commercial vehicles, which is also a major reason behind corrupt practices, the state government has decided that portable scales will be installed on the roads and even the drivers will not get to know when the weight of their vehicles has been measured. He said that 45 such portable scales have been bought by the State Government and after the success of this experiment, more such portable scales will be installed in the entire state, shared the Chief Minister. He further said that body cameras will be worn by vehicle inspectors going for checking and passing of commercial vehicles, so as to ensure that recording of the entire checking process is done and its monitoring will be done at headquarters.

The CM added the problem of overloading is usually found in mining vehicles, therefore the ‘e-RAVANA’ software has already been prepared by the Mining Department but now this software will be integrated with the ‘VAHAN’ software of the Transport Department.

Khattar said at present the number of registered commercial vehicles in RTA office is around 1.25 lakh and the number of employees in the RTA offices is only 627.

More recruitment will be done within a period of one

year for smooth functioning of these offices. The CM said the Deputy Commissioners will also be made aware of this decision of the state government. He said that it is not necessary that the DTO officer will be of IAS or HCS rank, but for this, any class-I officer or an IPS or HPS officer or any officer on deputation can be appointed as DTO. The main aim behind all this is to curb corruption.

The Chief Minister also indicated that after RTA, he will select some other departments as well where there is a high probability of corruption and action on checking such corruption will be taken soon.