Two years after IAS officer Ashok Khemka was shifted out from Transport Department, it has come to light that the Haryana government has failed to recover an estimated Rs 400 crore from transporters who had kept running their 20,000 over-sized trucks and trailers from January 2015 to January 2016.
After Khemka’s opposition, the government had given them conditional permission for one year to “right-size” their vehicles, but they neither modified their vehicles nor the government forfeited the surety bonds of Rs 2 lakh for each oversized vehicle. It’s learnt that a large number of such over-sized vehicles are still running on roads risking the lives of others even as the transporters have been getting exemption to get their vehicles “right-sized” for the past five years.
As state transport commissioner, Khemka had denied to give fitness certificate to oversized vehicles for carrying automobiles. In protest, the truckers went on strike in January 2015. Two days after trucks and trailers went off the Haryana roads, the transporters called off the strike when the state government acquiesced to announce “one-time fitness certificate” to the over-sized vehicles risking road safety.
Except very few, the transporters did not rightsize their trucks even after the deadline of January 2016. But the government did not forfeit their bond money, an estimated Rs 400 crore for 20,000 over-sized vehicles at Rs 2 lakh per vehicle. Not only this, the government gave them another extension of one year in July 2016 in lieu of Rs 2.5 lakh surety bond.
Haryana Transport Commissioner Suprabha Dahiya said, “The bonds were not forfeited as transporters’ talks had started with the government. Around 3,000 of the total oversized vehicles have been rightsized or scrapped.”
The government now says the oversized vehicles were not more than 20,000 in number. However, in 2015, a figure of 40,000 to 60,000 was mentioned to justify relief to the transporters.
In a government file noting of January 7, 2015, accessed by The Indian Express, the then principal secretary to Chief Minister, Sanjeev Kaushal, had noted, “In the backdrop of the strike of 40,000-60,000 transport vehicles and the resultant fear of closure and stoppage of production by automobile manufactures in Haryana and also the resultant labour problems likely to occur, the matter was discussed by CM, Transport Minister, PS Transport and Transport Commissioner”
In the meeting, according to the note, All India Motor Congress and other Associations which had gone on strike also “regretted the earlier failure to right-size their vehicles”. “They represented that the movement of oversized vehicles is a countrywide phenomena and that other states are also registering and declaring similarly oversized vehicles as fit,” the note says. Finally, the Chief Minister had approved the proposal of one time fitness certificate in lieu of 2 lakh bond for each over-sized vehicle.
However, on January 9, 2015, Khemka, in a file noting, had pointed out that the transporters were not true to their word earlier when they were granted one-year exemption in 2012.
“No oversized vehicle was right-sized after the March 12, 2012, government notification which gave blanket exemption to transporters for a period of one year. The RTAs of Gurgaon and Faridabad continued to give fitness certificates wrongly to over-sized transport vehicles after the end of the exemption period….,” he said in the note.
Expressing apprehension over the intention of transporters, Khemka had further noted; “Their undertakings will be paper commitments and they would resort to same pressure tactics after one year… The situation would turn worse after the relaxation period. The proposed relaxation will only encourage building of a transporters’ mafia in Gurgaon-Faridabad, adversely affecting industrial growth in the long run. No person will invest in a new vehicle during the period of relaxation, because the right-sized vehicle will be relatively non-competitive to the existing over-dimensional transport vehicles…”
But Sanjeev Kaushal, in his note on January 13, 2015, said, “CM entirely agrees that oversized vehicles should not ply on the roads. He has observed…it is also a fact that oversized vehicle owners have not complied with the CMV regulations in spite of the opportunity given by the Government in March 2012 and the subsequent letters issued by the Transport Commissioner giving them amnesty from time to time. However, the Government also cannot be a mute witness to breakdown of some of the most important sectors of the economy, viz., the manufacturing sector particularly the automobile manufacturers and white goods manufacturers located in the State…coupled with this is the fact that oversized vehicles are operating in the entire country at present, and an immediate stoppage only in Haryana would hardly be the solution to the problem. It would amount to throwing the baby along with the bath water.” “CM has desired that the orders be implemented today,” Kaushal concluded in the note.
Three months after this episode, Khemka was transferred to the Archaeology and Museums Department. Currently, he is principal secretary of Haryana’s Science and Technology Department.
When contacted on Saturday, Khemka said, “To overcome illegitimate vested interests and to implement the rule of law, one requires courage, sincerity and determination.”
Date:April 23, 2017