Fitness certificates of heavy vehicles now valid for 2 yrs

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, January 20

To provide relief to the owners of heavy vehicles, the Transport Department has directed the RTAs to issue fitness certificate with two-year validity. Earlier, the fitness certificate was valid for only a year.

Nishant Kumar Yadav, Additional Deputy Commissioner-cum-Secretary, RTA, said they had been asked by the Transport Commissioner to issue fitness certificate for two years.

In case of new registration of transport vehicle, which is purchased as fully built, the fitness fee of the vehicle would not be charged and the fitness certificate would not be printed, he said.

For the registration of new vehicle, purchased as drive away chassis, Yadav said the fitness fee would be charged and the certificate would be printed.

He said that in case of issuing certificate to the already registered vehicle whether it was fully built or it was a drive away chassis, the fee would be charged and the fitness certificate would be printed. “It will save time of vehicle owners,” he said.

Vehicle experts consider it may increase the risk. “The Motor Vehicles Act specifies that every public transport vehicle should be produced before the Motor Vehicle Inspector once a year, two years after the registration. The inspector checks the vehicle for its roadworthiness before issuing the fitness certificate. Under the rules, the vehicle should be free from defects and must have all mandatory fittings such as rear view mirrors. Extending inspection from one year to two years may by dangerous,” said Vishal Kumar, an expert.

He said, “Every year, several discrepancies are found in a vehicle during an inspection. The owner takes several days to rectify them. With two-year relaxation, the vehicle owners will become careless.”