Coimbatore: Transport vehicle owners said they are forced to shell out thousands of rupees to get calibration certificate for the speed governors installed in their vehicles and also to reinstall the governors to obtain fitness certificate (FC) from the regional transport office (RTO).
“Even for the BS4 vehicles, which have inbuilt speed governors, RTO officials insist that we get calibration certificate. But we cannot tamper the inbuilt speed governors. The officials do not have the tools to check whether the governors are working. But they demand the certificate,” said V Durai Kannan, president of the Coimbatore District Private Bus Owners Association. “We will have to get the calibration certificate from the manufacturer. If the name of the manufacturer is not in the list of authorized dealers, then the officials will force us to install a governor from an authorized dealer. The list of authorized dealers is revised every year.”
“The difference between changing a speed governor and obtaining a calibration certificate is just a few hundred rupees and instead of taking efforts to obtain the certificate, we could install another governor,” said D Shobinathan, assistant secretary of Tourist Vehicle Drivers’ Welfare Association.
A speed governor costs about 4,000. “The officials do not even check whether the governor is installed properly. All they need to see is the equipment in the vehicle and the certificate,” he added.
Meanwhile, the state government has made it mandatory for the vehicle owners to fix reflective stickers – white sticker on the front, yellow on the sides and red on the back - of their vehicles. Vehicles that have more than 23 seats should have cameras.
“Most of the vehicles already have reflective stickers. But the officials want us to buy stickers from authorized dealers. We are forced to spend at least Rs 4,000 on the stickers,” said a vehicle owner.