While Telangana state came into being 10 days ago, the first vehicle proudly sporting the new state’s code is yet to roll out of regional transport authority (RTA) offices.
Transport officials said that they cannot take up registrations until the Union government accepts their latest revised proposal of `TS’ as state code. Therefore, at least 15,000 vehicle owners across the 10 districts of Telangana are waiting to get their vehicles registered.
Telangana transport department officials are not sure at what time the Union government might issue a notification granting Telangana state’s preferred `TS’ code. New vehicle owners are doing rounds of RTA offices, as no official announcement about the suspension of registrations.
The new vehicle registrations in Telangana were supposed to start from June 2 with `TG’ as the code, which was earlier widely believed would be the new state’s registration code. But, K Chandrasekhar Rao after taking charge as the first chief minister of the new state ordered the transport department to send a revised proposal to the Union government seeking `TS’ for Telangana.
So, the new vehicle registrations have been stalled. “I was issued a temporary registration certificate 15 days ago. Till date, I have visited RTA Uppal office thrice and the officials concerned give a stock reply: Come back later. Waiting for new code from the Centre. The officials should have dealt with these things by the time the state was created,” T Nagaraju, a resident of Uppal said. Similar was the plight of U Raju, a resident of Lalapet.
Many citizens who had purchased vehicles 30 days ago fear that they might be forced to pay fine for no fault of theirs.
Joint transport commissioner B Venkateshwarlu said, “We are expecting the Union government to issue a notification allotting `TS’ as Telangana state code in the next two or three days. Once it is official, the registrations will resume.”
According to sources, apart from suspending new vehicle registrations, the RTA also has stopped issuing smart card driving licenses. Because of mandatory changes needed in software following the formation of Telangana, the issue of new licences and renewal of licences have also been bringing to a halt. The department might start issuing new driving licences after three days.