Telangana transport minister seeks printers to clear smart card backlog

HYDERABAD: Following the concerns of vehicle owners in Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts over issuance of smart cards by the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) department, state transport minister P Mahender Reddy took stock of the matter and reviewed the status of pendency on Tuesday.
After a detailed review, the minister, who visited the RTA office in Khairatabad, asked transport commissioner Sunil Sharma to arrange for the consumables of the printing cards and printers to the district officers within three days.
On June 29, TOI had reported on the issues of vehicle owners due to shortage of over 2 lakh smart cards and lack of consumables. The transport minister reviewed the matter after the report was published and asked the commissioner to procure extra printers on rationalization basis and supply them to the district offices where there are more number of cards pending.
It was found in the meeting that there are 2.30 lakh cards pending for printing, mainly in Rangareddy, Hyderabad, Medchal and Mancherial. “We have been experiencing a shortage in supply of smart cards as the vendor didn’t supply 3,000 printing ribbons. The issue will be sorted now after the consumables of printing cards and printers are arranged,” said C Ramesh, joint transport commissioner, RTA.
The minister also instructed the District Transport Officers (DTO) of Rangareddy, Hyderabad, Mancherial and Medchal to clear the pendency of printing cards within 15 days from the supply of the consumables and also instructed the remaining districts to complete the pendency within 10 days. “We are happy that the issue of smart cards has been reviewed by the minister after TOI published the report. The vehicle owners have been waiting for months to hear this news,” said M Dayanand, general secretary, Telangana Auto and Motor Welfare Union.
This apart, Reddy also instructed the officials to make grievance cells functional at every district in the state, asked the DTOs to monitor the cells and send an abstract of the complaints received, solved and the ones that are pending once every month to the transport minister’s office.
A Grievance Redressal Cell will be set up at the state level in the office of the Transport Commissioner with one independent landline and WhatsApp number and an e-mail id.
“One person will be designated to attend the calls and all the grievances will be closely monitored by the Transport Commissioner,” the RTA officials said.
The minister also appointed a committee to study the existing online systems, give suggestions to make the department more transparent and to develop an RTA mobile app for the citizens for online services.