MARGAO
When governments and autonomous bodies, besides private institutions from Goa and outside, have approached the Supreme Court for registration of the BS4-compliant vehicles, the Margao Municipal Council (MMC) has preferred to knock on the doors of Transport Minister Mauvin Godinho to get the three trucks registered by the Transport department.
As the three trucks costing around Rs 37 lakh are rusting at the Margao municipal garage for close to two years for want of registration after the BS6 compliant regime came into force in April 2021, the MMC has again knocked on the doors of the Transport Minister to bail out the civic body.
If the letter sent by the MMC to the Officer of Special Duty (OSD) to the Transport Minister last month evoked no response to date, Margao Municipal Chairperson Damu Shirodkar is believed to have written a letter on Tuesday, this time addressed to the Transport Minister Mauvin Godinho.
Even Transport officials in private admit that only the Supreme Court can give relief to the Margao civic body in the registration of the three trucks since the BS6 regime had come into force with the Supreme Court directions.
The issue at hand is simple. The Margao Municipal Council had purchased the three BS4 complaint trucks at a cost of Rs 37 lakh but did not register the vehicles with the transport department before the BS6-compliant regime came into force on April 1, 2021.
Since then, the three vehicles purchased with the taxpayer’s money are all stranded in the municipal garage since they cannot ply on the roads for want of registration. The Transport department has insisted that BS4-compliant vehicles cannot be registered post-April 1, 2021, when the new regime had come into force.
Sources in the know, however, said the government and semi-government bodies, which had knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court for condonation of delay in the registration of the BS4 compliant vehicles have got the relief.
In fact, a private education institution from Goa and a semi-government body recently obtained an order from the Supreme Court for the registration of their BS4-compliant vehicles. Armed with the order, the department and the private institution have approached the Transport department to register the vehicles.
Incidentally, the Margao municipality on Tuesday dashed off a letter to the Transport Minister by attaching the apex court orders obtained by the government department and the private institution to register their vehicles with the Transport department.
Questions are being raised in the corridors of the Margao Municipal Council whether the Transport Minister can give relief to the civic body when the matter falls in the domain of the Supreme Court. That’s not all. With two years having lapsed since the new BS6 regime, eyebrows are being raised why the civic body is dilly-dallying in approaching the apex court, with sources fearing the civic body may be pulled up for the long delay in filing its plea for condonation of delay.
