Srinagar, June 27: Transport Minister Qamar Ali Akhoon today stressed on discouraging the practice of making double rounds at a stretch as resorted to by some transporters on Srinagar-Jammu highway between the two capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar.
 Chairing a meeting of Assistant Regional Transport Officers (ARTO) here, the Minister said that the practice is wrought with risks, which he said had to be stopped in the interest of passenger safety.
 Akhoon directed the transport and police authorities to effectively check overloading and take stern action against drunken drivers. He called for identifying such irresponsible transporters and lodging FIRs against them. “Cancellation of their driving licences should also be taken to reverse the trend,” he said.
 The Minister said six more ARTO offices would be computerized shortly in phase-II to promote transparency in the issuance of licences, collection of fees and host of other activities.
 He said functioning of eight already computerized offices of ARTOs in phase-I had been streamlined.
 The Minister said government would provide official-cum-residential accommodation to all the ARTOs for which 10 kanal of land in each district are being acquired.
 In a landmark initiative, the meeting decided to videograph driving tests conducted by the ARTOs before granting of driving licenses. The step, it was observed, would facilitate issuance of licences to trained drivers only besides putting a tab on irregularities in the process “No licence should be issued without a standard driving test that too after videography,” he said.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 27 Jun 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 28 Jun 2011 00:00:00 IST