No check on commercial use of tractor-trailers

Aman Sood

Tribune News Service

Patiala, February 22

Despite a ban by the Supreme Court on the use of pressure horns by vehicles plying on the Punjab roads and repeated reminders to challan the illegal use of tractor-trailers for commercial purposes, the police and the transport wing has reportedly failed to check the widespread misuse. 

Though thousands of persons have died in the past few years due to the menace, the authorities are yet to toughen their stance. 

In Januray 2014, Dinkar Gupta, Additional DGP-Traffic, Punjab, had ordered all district SSPs and Commissioners that heavy fines should be imposed, along with impounding vehicle and cancellation of driving licenses, on the vehicle with multi-toned horns. He had asked them to take strict action against pressure horns. The orders had come following the Supreme Court directions to remove multi-toned horns by January 10, 2014.

However, traffic wings in the state seem to be apathetic towards the menace so buses and trucks with multi-toned and pressure horns continue to ply on the roads.

The Punjab government has already banned the use of tractor-trailers for commercial purposes and has asked all enforcement agencies, including the District Transports Offices, to issue challans to the commercially-used tractors. However, the district police and the Transport Department officials have failed to do so. Brick kilns are reportedly the biggest defaulters.

Sources said the decision came following a recent spurt in the use of tractor-trailers for commercial purposes without paying any tax to the government for the same. “As tractor-trailers are primarily used for agriculture purposes, there is no tax levied on it. Punjab being an agriculture-dominated state, villagers have huge number of tractor-trailers which they tend to rent out when not being used in farms,” said a source. 

Sources said tractor-trailers were being used for commercial activities in all parts of the state, with the connivance of the Transport and Police Department. In majority of the cases, these vehicles were plying in the districts to supply sand, bricks, gravel and other construction material without paying any road tax or other taxes to the state government.

A recent surge in the number of accidents involving tractors on the state highways and link roads have also been a cause of concern. Another Herculean task for the police and transport wing has been to ask the owners of tractor-trailers to use reflectors at night, as they are hardly visible at night.

Patiala SSP S Bhupathi was not available for comments despite repeated attempts.