Deep rooted corruption in Haryana government’s transport department has converted even a high court-directed scheme into a money spinner for officials, who in collusion with dealers and manufacturers of speed governors, involved in a multi-crore racket.
Investigations by this newspaper have revealed that this official-dealer nexus is causing a whopping loss of an estimated `15 crores to the state exchequer every year with sources in the state administration claiming that this may well be a conservative estimate.
Ironically, it was the Punjab and Haryana high court which had directed the state government to install speed governors in all commercial vehicles registered in Haryana in wake of increasing cases of road deaths. But instead, the scheme has become a source of steady income for the corrupt officials.
Now, this is how the racket operates. Every commercial vehicle is to be given a fitness certificate by the transport authority once a speed governor is installed. For this the vehicle owner has to provide a set of documents to the vehicle inspector, which also includes a valid bill of the speed governor, giving full details of the authorised dealer and even the TIN Number.
The TIN Number is a unique identification number that is provided to every dealer in the state by the sales tax department to ensure there is no evasion of sales tax, excise duty and the service tax by a particular dealer. In fact, the unique TIN number helps the sales tax department track all tax related activities of dealers online.
However, this newspaper is in the possession of a series of bills where the TIN number is mentioned but in reality it is found to be fake. When checked on the site, the TIN number is not found to be existing.
“These fakebills are only a formality for government records. But in reality there is a blatant violation of all rules and norms by the transport department official and speed governor dealers, What is the guarantee of these fly by night operators,’’ an official admitted.
Earlier, state commissioner S.K. Joshi had admitted to lapses in the scheme assuring massive crackdown against the erring officials. During the course of investigations, this newspaper also managed to procure a bill in which no TIN Number has been mentioned at all. The bills merely mention “applied for (A|F). What makes mockery of such a sensitive issue is that certain bills neither have the TIN number, nor the dealer’s address but only a mobile number. Interestingly, the racket is not limited to any one region of the state as such fake bills are originating from Panipat, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Nuh, Rohtak and many other cities. It has also been revealed that one fake bill was being used for several commercial vehicles an attempt to get a fitness certificate.