PUDUCHERRY: Puducherry transport department has warned owners or permit holders of auto rickshaws of strict action if they carry passengers exceeding the allowed capacity. This comes after a bus and an auto rickshaw collided at Lal Bahadur Shastri street, causing injuries to all eight primary school children that were travelling in the auto.
Puducherry Transport Commissioner A S Sivakumar, in a release issued on Thursday, said that auto rickshaw drivers should carry students as per seating capacity rules mentioned in the State Transport Authority guidelines.
A three-wheeler auto rickshaw is allowed to carry four persons including the driver. Sivakumar pointed out a Supreme Court judgment from 1997, which ruled that vehicles used for transporting students of an educational institution should not be permitted to carry children more than 1.5 times the registered seating capacity. The auto rickshaw having a seating capacity of four, including the driver, shall carry only three students aged over 12 years (normally Class 8 and above) and five students of age upto 12 years (normally upto Class 7), Sivakumar said.
The commissioner warned that whoever drives, causes or carries passengers exceeding the registered capacity, shall be punishable under Section 194-A of The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, and will be fined with `200 per extra passenger. The permit holder of the transport vehicle shall be punishable under Section 192-A of the said act for contravention of permit condition with a fine of `10,000. The permit issued may be suspended or cancelled under Section 86 (1) (a) of the said act, he said. The parents of the school children, he added, have been advised to avoid using the transport services that carrying more children than the allowed seating capacity.