Nitish Sharma

Kurukshetra, April 3

Tightening the noose around traffic rule violators, the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) has challaned as many as 2,993 vehicles over the past one year (from April 2022 to March 2023) and collected a fine of Rs 12.77 crore.

As per information, vehicles carrying sand, cement, wood, iron and other commodities that were being plied with more load than the permissible capacity were caught and issued challans. The majority of the overloaded vehicles are caught entering Kurukshetra from the Yamunanagar side and then they head towards Karnal and Ambala.

While the RTA teams keep tabs on overloaded vehicles, the offenders watch the movement of the RTA vehicles and share their locations on WhatsApp groups to avoid getting caught.

An official said, "There are WhatsApp groups in which the locations of the RTA teams are shared by private people, who keep a track of their vehicles. There have been incidents of people being caught sharing the location of the teams with transporters to help them avoid challans, in lieu of money. After getting the team's location, the transporters change the routes or stop their vehicles on dhabas to avoid penalty."

Urmil Sheokand, secretary, RTA, Kurukshetra, said, "Transporters are plying overloaded vehicles and are violating other traffic norms too. For instance, an overloaded vehicle carrying sand was caught in the Ladwa area on Monday. It had no insurance, no fitness, tax or pollution certificates. The vehicle was impounded today and a challan of Rs 1.28 lakh was issued."

Sheokand said people were sharing the location of the RTA teams, sincere efforts are made to catch the violators.

"At times, drivers leave their overloaded vehicles on the road after spotting the RTA team and then online challans are issued to them. They even take village routes to avoid getting caught. However, tabs are being kept on such routes too," the secretary added.

"Overloaded vehicles also pose a serious threat to the lives of commuters, besides damaging the roads. These have even become a major cause of accidents," the RTA secretary added.