Motor Vehicle Inspectors and senior officers attached to the Motor Vehicles Department (MVD) under the aegis of the Kerala Motor Vehicles Department Gazetted Officers’ Association will to go on a token strike next week in protest against the denial of promotions, cutting of employment benefits, and promoting under-qualified officials as Regional Transport Officers.
The officers observed a black day on Wednesday. The officials will now strike work on September 16.
A.S. Vinod, general secretary of the association, said in a statement that the officers of the technical wing of the MVD had been subjected to mental torture and unnecessary punitive action even when they were confronted with lack of basic infrastructure facilities in the department.
Instances of an Assistant Motor Vehicle Inspector securing just one promotion and retiring after 20 years of service was common. At the same time, a clerk who joined service without technical qualification and mandatory police training acquired seven promotions to become a Joint RTO during the period, he said.
This was because of the unscientific provisions of the Transport Service Special Rules that favoured the ministerial staff, Mr. Vinod said, adding that the draft special rules formulated in 1999 to circumvent this discrepancy in promotions were yet to be implemented.
The association said that the ministerial staff who reached the upper echelons of the department had little or no technical knowledge about the bus and truck body code, speed governors, and such other matters. Incidentally, they were also empowered to give temporary registration and subsequently registration of vehicles and also take action on vehicle checking reports, they said.
Basic facilities such as an office, a control room and vehicles had not been provided for the Safe Kerala Project established two years ago.
The government had been urged to implement the amended rules, stop promoting unqualified persons as Joint RTOs, solve the disparity in the promotions, appoint adequate and technically qualified officers at the Transport Commissionerate, stop the reportedly farcical learners licence test and prevent loopholes in Vahan and Sarathi software, they said.