Karnataka - Bellary   

120 overloaded lorries seized during drive

BELLARY: As many as 120 lorries were seized for overloading, in a special drive taken up by the Regional Transport Authority in Bellary, Hospet and Koppal, starting Tuesday.

Deputy Commissioner for Transport (Hyderabad-Karnataka) R. Rajashekar, who is supervising the drive, told presspersons here on Wednesday that 2,400 tonnes of ore had been loaded in excess of the capacity of the vehicles.

The drive is the outcome of a meeting held in Bellary recently, to check overloading of vehicles and prevent damage to roads. Over 600 km of road in the district, including stretches of National Highway 63 had been severely damaged owing to heavy movement of vehicles transporting iron ore to Andhra Pradesh and Chennai. Many vehicles were overloaded, and were health problems to the people, he added. Officials at the meeting decided to form task forces, comprising staff of departments such as Mines and Geology, Forests, Transport, Police and Revenue, to check movement of overloaded vehicles. They would also instruct mine owners to install a weigh bridge in the mining areas to ensure that no overloaded vehicle passed out of their territories.

Mr. Rajashekar said that from March 2007 to February 2008, Transport Department officials had seized 1,543 overloaded vehicles and collected Rs. 1.81-crore fine in Bellary district alone.

To a question, he said that during the drive, which would be held for a week, apart from imposition of fines, vehicles would not be released till the excess material was off loaded.

He said that three teams had been constantly monitoring the movement of vehicles in Bellary, Hospet and Koppal.

Assistant Regional Transport Officers Buddappa and Pompapati were present.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

120 overloaded lorries seized during drive
Chalk out plans for development of society, ICAI branches told

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu