Anantapur: Act sternly with Motor Vehicles Act violators

Anantapur: Joint Collector Nishanth Kumar has directed the road transport officials to sternly deal with the Motor Vehicles Act violations and bring down traffic accidents by 13.48 per cent this year.

Participating in the district-level traffic safety committee meeting at the collectorate here on Monday, Nishanth Kumar said in case minors were caught driving vehicles without licence, then their parents will be sent to 3 years jail for allowing their under-age kids to drive.

District Transport Commissioner Shivaram Prasaad explained in detail the steps taken to implement the traffic safety meeting minutes of September 2020 meeting.

The joint collector reviewed the implementation of decisions taken in the last meeting. Nishanth stated that in the context of reopening of schools, care should be taken to ensure that minor children do not drive scooters or motorcycles, school buses and auto-rickshaws should not be permitted to operate beyond the permitted passengers. Circulars should be sent to school managements in this regard. He also referred to the state government's GO issued on October 21 with 30 points of action and the penalties to be levied on violators. Awareness should be created in schools and colleges as it referred to driving by minors and majors without driving licences. Awareness letters should be circulated to parents by schools and college managements. Designs of vehicles should not be changed by the vehicle drivers on fancy grounds. The transport department must take steps to bring down accident rate this year, he added.

In the police and transport department vehicle checking 4.54 lakh persons were fined in the district for violating traffic and road safety rules and more than Rs 11 crore fines were collected.

Since 2019, 979 road mishaps were recorded and 506 succumbed to road mishaps.

Additional SP K V R K Prasad, R&B superintendent engineer Nagaraju, DHMO Dr Kameshwara Prasad and GGH superintendent Ramaswamy Naik and others were present.