NMC additional municipal commissioner Hemant Pawar, who is also
executive director of NMPL, chaired the meeting attended by assistant
RTO Ravindra Bhuyar, police inspectors (traffic) Avinash More and Sunil
Shinde, assistant municipal commissioners Mahesh Moroney and R Karad,
and Vansh Nimay’s general manager (operations) Sanket Pande and others.

The meeting focused on various issues ranging from encroachments near bus shelters to non-payment of passenger tax.

Pawar directed the assistant municipal commissioners of all 10 zones to
ensure there are no encroachments near bus shelters. “There should be
no encroachments (like handcarts or even parked autorickshaws) within 50
meters of the bus shelters,” Pawar said, and directed both NMC zonal
officers and traffic police to ensure this.

PI Sunil Shinde
said the traffic police are always ready to extend support to NMC to
remove encroachments from the roads. The issue of pending royalty and
refund of concessions given to students were also discussed.

Non-payment of passenger tax

Assistant RTO Ravindra Bhuyar raised the issue of non-payment of
passenger tax. Since inception of city bus service by NMC, not a single
penny has been paid towards this head. As per RTO records, the unpaid
passengers tax comes to around Rs 10.63 crore.

Fitness certificates

After TOI highlighted the issue of Starbuses plying without fitness
certificates, the city bus operator has started complying with fitness
norms. It has already started the procedure to obtain fitness
certificates for its fleet and so far it has obtained fitness
certificates for 110 buses. Presently, the operator is plying 240 buses,
of which 180 buses were purchased under JNNURM.

Shift bus shelters

The presence of bus stops near traffic junctions, main thoroughfares
and roundabouts, is posing bottlenecks to free vehicular movement on
many busy stretches across Nagpur, pointed out senior traffic PI Avinash
More. He demanded that NMC should shift the bus stops erected near
traffic junctions, so that there is no chaos near junctions.

Illegal passenger vehicles

Vansh Nimay officials raised the issue of illegal passenger vehicles
plying in city limits, which is affecting their business. Most
autorickshaws operating in the city do not have mandatory stage
transport permit as stipulated by the Motor Vehicles Act. The illegal
operation of autorickshaws and other private vehicles also came to fore
recently when the city traffic police launched a drive and found many
three-wheelers without valid permits plying in city limits.