Thousands of Unfit Vehicles Plying on Roads Without Fitness Certificates and Permits, Massive Revenue Loss Revealed
A damning report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has laid bare severe administrative apathy and gross operational negligence within the Uttar Pradesh Transport Department. According to the official audit findings presented to the legislature, thousands of commercial and private vehicles across the state continue to ply on public highways without valid fitness certificates and mandatory route permits. The department's utter failure to issue timely notices, cancel expired permits, and enforce statutory penalties has not only triggered a massive financial dent to the state exchequer amounting to crores of rupees but has also created an alarming road safety hazard for millions of commuters.
Audit Unearths Lax Monitoring and Uncollected Fitness Fees Running into Millions
The comprehensive CAG investigation, conducted between August 2022 and October 2023 across multiple regional transport offices, exposed systemic administrative inaction regarding vehicle fitness renewals. Records scrutinized from major divisional hubs including Agra, Bareilly, Jhansi, Kanpur, Lucknow, Mathura, Meerut, Saharanpur, and Varanasi, alongside sub-offices in Bahraich, Bulandshahr, and Hapur, revealed that fitness certificates for thousands of vehicles lapsed without triggering any departmental penalty. Specifically, 2,010 transport vehicles and 1,537 private vehicles operated with expired fitness certifications. Out of these, enforcement teams challaned 934 vehicles while 894 vehicles cleared taxes long after their fitness validity expired, proving that unfit and illegal vehicles routinely traversed public routes unchecked.
Failure to Process Database Leads to Revenue Deficits and Unpaid Penalties
The audit highlighted that a lack of automated database processing and administrative monitoring left essential government revenues uncollected. A total of ₹37.18 lakh in fitness fees—comprising ₹21.78 lakh from commercial transport vehicles and ₹15.37 lakh from private owners—remained unrecovered because the transport offices failed to dispatch statutory demand notices. Furthermore, during a targeted audit of Kanpur Nagar records for the 2022-23 financial year, investigators discovered that 84 JnNURM buses belonging to Kanpur City Transport Limited illegally operated outside designated municipal limits for nearly three years, failing to pay requisite additional operational taxes. Divisional and assistant transport authorities across various districts similarly omitted collecting mandatory monthly penalties amounting to a staggering ₹15.36 crore on delayed taxes. Concluding the report with stern recommendations, the CAG urged the state government to plug legal loopholes by amending statutory provisions while noting that the transport administration has failed to provide satisfactory explanations for these massive lapses.
