Commercial vehicle owners want notification on HSNP revoked

Rs. 2048 TOO MUCH FOR HIGH SECURITY NUMBER PLATES, THEY COMPLAIN
GANGTOK, 03 Feb: The All Sikkim Truck and Taxi Owners and Drivers Joint Action Committee [ASTTODJAC] has requested the Transport Department to revoke its recent notification on high security registration number plates and first convene a meeting with the association to discuss the issue.
It is informed that the Transport Department issued a notification on 17 January 2011, directing that all the vehicles which have still not acquired the high security registration number plates do so by 31 January. That deadline is already past.
Addressing a press conference today, executive members of the committee informed that they will not be opting for the high security registration number plates because they still do not have a proper understanding of it since the concerned authority has not briefed them adequately on the matter.
They have demanded that the notification in question be withdrawn and they be consulted before any such enforcement is mooted.
“In our earlier meeting, we had arrived at a mutual understanding with the department that after government and private vehicles had acquired these number plates, the committee will sit in a meeting with the department discuss the matter and negotiate on how this could be implemented for commercial vehicles,” they informed.
The executive members contended that this meeting was chaired by the Transport Minister, TT Bhutia, who is also the chairman of the ASTTODJAC.
And yet, the Department pulled the latest surprise on them by putting out a notice on the department’s notice board on 17 January.
They have further argued that despite the long time for which the rule has been in place for government and private vehicles, barely 20% of the government vehicles [as per their claim], have acquired these new plates. It was thus unfair to expect commercial vehicles across the State to do so with 13 days, they add.
The association has now called a general meeting for the second week of February at Gangtok, which is expected to be attended by members of all 28 associations registered with the committee.
The committee has also rejected the Rs. 2,048 price tag for the new registration plates as too expensive.
The press conference was addressed by the committee president, Dhanraj Philemon, vice-president, Chung Chung Bhutia, general secretaries, Dinesh Tamang and Lakpa Sherpa and advisors, Tshering Bhutia and Pempa Tshering Bhutia.
[SAGAR CHHETRI]