THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as the number of new vehicles in the state is witnessing a steady increase and the annual accident rate also going up steadily, acute shortage of staff is affecting the day-to-day activities of the Motor Vehicles Department (MVD).The successive LDF and the UDF Governments have turned a blind eye to the staff shortage, thereby leaving the existing paltry staff overburdened with a host of works, including, registration of new vehicles, issuing of driving licence and traffic enforcement.“There are only 125 Motor Vehicle Inspectors and 270 Assistant Motor Vehicle Inspectors in the Department across the state. The staff are entrusted to carry out the registration of vehicles on an average of 2,000 per day and they also have to share the work of issuing driving licence after carrying out driving tests on an average of 2,000 persons per day. In addition to this, inspection of around 4,000 odd vehicles and issuance of fitness certificate takes place. It is high time to allot more staff ,” said a top level official in the Motor Vehicles Department. Statistics reveals that in 2011 (till November), there are as many as 72,82,254 vehicles in the state . As many as 32,190 accidents were reported with 3,650 of them being fatal. Around 37,188 were injured in the accidents.When contacted, outgoing Transport Commissioner T P Senkumar admitted that the staff shortage was one of the main problems faced by the Department. “Recently the State Government had sanctioned 56 posts for the formation of an Enforcement Wing in the Department. With the newly-created posts, there would be 17 additional squads in addition to the existing 14. Including these, we had reported around 70 vacancies to the Public Service Commission. But more staff ought to be recruited to effectively carry out a number of services ,” he said.The government has sanctioned around 56 new posts when the actual vacancies existing in the Department are more than 300. “The staff crunch in the Department is giving a chance for the agents to thrive and to be active in the regional transport offices across the state. It is no secret, the agents are operating openly in front of regional transport offices offering their help in various office affairs and collecting a fee from customers. The officials who are already overburdened with the work close their eyes to these activities,” said a Regional Transport Officer.Agents claim that part of the money they collect from applicants reach the pockets of MV officials.“Well, in a way we are doing a public service and collecting a token fee for it. From filling up of a licence application to arranging dates for the driving tests we help the people for the speedy processing of the work. Also we share the work burden of transport officials and ensure that a part of money reaches them,” said Mohan (name changed), an agent working in the Thiruvananthapuram circle.
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