BENGALURU: In the backdrop of citizens and business leaders venting their anger against the BBMP for not maintaining proper roads, a social activist on Thursday wrote to the Chief Secretary of Karnataka, Vandita Sharma urging her to invoke Section 198A of the Motor Vehicle Act against erring contractors/engineers. If Section 198A MV Act is implemented by RTO/traffic police, the authorities can impose a penalty of up to Rs 1 lakh per bad stretch of road for failure to comply with standards of road design, construction and maintenance.
The activist H M Sadananda told TNIE that the office of chief secretary responded to him via email within 15 minutes stating that the secretary of the transport department has been directed to take necessary action in this regard.
Sadananda had filed an RTI application with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH), seeking available remedies under the law for proper maintenance of roads. “Implementation of provisions of Central Motor Vehicles Rule, 1989 (CMVRs) and Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 comes under the purview of State Transport Departments/UTs. You may, therefore, write to the notified public authority in the state/UT concerned for further requisite information,” MORTH stated in its reply, prompting Sadananda to write to the CS.
He requested the CS to issue directions to authorities concerned to implement the Act across the state.
Sadananda also mentioned that Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand have already implemented the Section and while six cases have been booked in UP, one case was registered in Uttarakhand.