TrivandrumLife>> The daily commute of staff to Secretariat during Covid 19 is snowballing into a major controversy. Following an altercation between officials of motor vehicles department and some Secretariat staff, chief secretary Viswas Mehta has directed transport secretary K R Jyothilal to give exemptions to secretariat staff with valid IDs cards for hiring parallel vehicles.
On October 14, a contract vehicle hired by a group of secretariat employees was issued fine by the officials of motor vehicles department. Following this, some secretariat staff entered into altercations with MVD officials. Based on the complaint filed by KSRTC executive director (vigilance), Cantonment police registered a case against two secretariat staff. Chief secretary issued a directive to the transport secretary on October 15 based on the complaints filed by the employees’ organisations’ in secretariat.
Earlier on October 5, the transport department had issued an order asking RTO and joint RTOs to take necessary action against plying of parallel vehicles in Thiruvananthapuram. The KSRTC has asked the state government to intervene in the issue of parallel vehicles, especially at a time when it is facing financial crunch due to Covid 19. The parallel vehicles are posing a major trouble to KSRTC which recently launched various services including ‘Bus on Demand’ to tide over the crisis.
Thiruvananthapuram is the only place in the state where KSRTC is operating local service. However, presence of parallel service vehicles are affecting its operations.
