Registration of 15-year-old government vehicles to be cancelled in Himachal Pradesh: Deputy CM Mukesh Agnihotri

SHIMLA: In Himachal Pradesh, 15-year-old government vehicles will be scrapped for which the facility of six registered vehicle scrapping and automatic testing centres will start in the state this year. State government has decided to cancel the registration of government vehicles which have completed 15 years while the fitness certificates of private vehicles would be issued through the automatic testing centres.
Deputy chief minister Mukesh Agnihotri, who also holds the Transport portfolio, informed this during a press conference in Shimla on Saturday.He said that in the state 50 per cent of total accidents take place on the national highways and human error is responsible for the majority of these accidents. He said that directions have been issued for the identification of accident-prone spots (black spots) so that they could be improved.
He said that when the Congress government came to power in December 2022, the revenue generation of the transport department was Rs 500 crore which is now being increased. He said that the state government has set a revenue target of Rs 775 crore for the financial year 2023-24. He said that by December 31 last year, the department has achieved revenue of Rs 581.13 crore, which is 75 percent of the target. Earlier, a target of Rs 572.10 crore was set for the year 2022-23 and the department achieved revenue of Rs 675.17 crore.
He said that the transport department is also increasing its earnings by selling fancy numbers and till now 3, 155 fancy numbers have been auctioned and due to this, a revenue of about Rs 11 crore has been generated.
He said that state government has also invited bids from interested people till January 31 to set up vehicle scrapping centres. He said that to install the intelligent traffic management system at all 12 barriers of transport department in the state June 30 has been set as the deadline. He said that in the state there are a total of 22,43,524 vehicles of which 19,25,593 vehicles are private while 3,17,931 are commercial vehicles.

Mukesh Agnihotri said that after scrapping 15 years old government vehicles, only electric vehicles will be purchased at the government level. He said that the system of e-challan will be completely implemented in the state by March 31 this. At the same time, efforts will be made to run a campaign for making driving licenses in schools also. Under this, licenses will be made for children who have completed 18 years of age.
He said that the state government is going to provide the facility of e-taxis in Himachal Pradesh for which applications have been invited from eligible persons. He said that seven electric charging stations have been set up on Kiratpur to Keylong road and by the end of February, 17 more such stations would be made functional.
He said that the transport department had invited applications for 234 bus routes and so far 1,236 applications have been received. He said that there are no takers for the 50 routes and these routes would be advertised again.