Regional Transport Office decides to dispose of 50 unclaimed vehicles on their premises and various PMPML bus depots by auction
With a large number of unclaimed motorbikes, cars, and illegal auto rickshaws occupying a lot of space at the Regional Transportation Office (RTO) and a few depots of PMPML, reducing them to a parking lot, the transport authority has decided to auction these vehicles.
Nearly 50 people, whose vehicles were seized due to various offences, were sent notices yesterday asking them to pay the fine amount or risk losing their vehicles.
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Congested: Unclaimed vehicles occupy majority of the space at the RTO at Alandi Road. File Pic
According to RTO authorities, owners don’t prefer collecting seized vehicles in order to avoid a court case and the heavy fine amount. With the vehicles piling up, the RTO has now decided that after a certain period they will auction all seized vehicles.
“Before the auction, a notice would be sent to the owner. After 15 days of sending the notice, the vehicle will be sold through the auction process,” said a senior RTO official, on condition of anonymity.
Source of revenue
“In the last two months, we sold 13 vehicles and collected Rs 16 lakh. The court takes strict against non-transfer of permit or ownership. So after seizure of vehicles, defaulters do not prefer collecting their vehicles because they have to go through the tedious process of a court case,” said the RTO official. The authorities have sent a notice to all defaulters and asked them to collect their vehicles before March 30.
RTO also seizes commercial vehicles for non-payment of regular taxes, non-transfer of permit, absence of documents etc. But with the RTO premise full to the brim, the seized vehicles are parked at PMPML depots. These seized vehicles currently occupy Swargate, Hadapsar and Nigadi, leaving PMPML buses with no space to park.
“More than 400 illegal vehicles are parked at various PMPML depots. At Hadapsar, around 125 seized vehicles are parked. We have complained to the RTO about the same and asked them to clear the place.
At night we have to resort to parking our buses outside the depot, which is not secure. If RTO evacuates all the vehicles, more than 50 PMPML buses can be parked at the depot,” said Vikram Shitole, PMPML depot manager, Hadapsar.
Arun Yeola, Pune RTO, said, “Due to shortage of land, we have been using PMPML depots also. But, now after every three months, seized vehicles will be sold at an auction if defaulters don’t reply within the specified date.” u00a0
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