PUNE: The Regional Transport Office (RTO) of Pune will soon issue notices to around 1,200 autorickshaw drivers, who do not have permits. The notice will be issued to the rickshaw drivers lacking a requisite permit. These rickshaw drivers will be penalised and their vehicles will be confiscated if they fail to show the permit to operate, informed the official.

In 2017, the State government removed the taxi, autorickshaw permit in Pune and other cities. With this change, RTO changed the policy to provide a rickshaw permit to everyone. Following this, RTO Pune has received hundreds of applications from those wanting to obtain the permit. As RTO is focusing on the online platform in order to the make process easier and transparent, last year, around 15,000 new autorickshaw permits were issued by RTO Pune in addition to 46,000 autorickshaws.

As per the registration process, a rickshaw owner is required to register his vehicle with the RTO through the online process and interview.

Following this, the officials issue him a sanction letter through which the owner has to pay the fee and obtain the final permit from the RTO. Around 1,200 autorickshaw owners have not yet obtained the permit but continue ferrying passengers, officials said.

“As per our information, a majority of these autorickshaw owners have obtained the sanction letter but have not yet paid the fees and procured the final permit, which is a legal document. This is necessary to use the vehicle for public transport. Either they are trying to skirt the process to avoid the fee or are mistaken that the sanction letter itself is the permit. These people need to obtain the permit without which the operation is patently illegal,” said Sanjay Raut, Deputy RTO, Pune.

“We have a list of all these applicants. If they fail to obtain the permit even after receiving the notice, we will penalise them and cancel the registration of the vehicle or even confiscate it,” said Raut.