Further standardisation of work in its offices to be one key area in Transport dept's 2018 calendar

Kolkata: With an aim to ensure "fast and smooth" service to people, further "standardisation of work" in all of its offices, where common people need to visit for different works, is going to be one of the key areas in the coming year's administrative calendar of the state Transport department.

A meeting to prepare the administrative calendar of the department for 2018 held on November 7, the preliminary discussions on the same among representatives of all the concerned units and allied organisations have taken place.

Sources said that in the meeting, there was discussion on the need of further "standardisation of work" in all offices including the Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) besides other issues that have to be taken care with equal importance in the next administrative year.

The main target is to make the offices more "citizen-centric" so that people do not have to face any sort of harassment and at the same time, the work with which they come to these offices get delayed without any

valid reason, said a state government official, adding that all the units of

the Transport department have put forward the month-wise review of

the work done by them in the current year and discussed on the work needed to be done or completed in the next year.

A senior official of the state Transport department will collaborate all data of the work done and more work which need to be done and subsequently the final decision on the administrative calendar will be taken by the highest authorities.

But as per the discussions held in the preliminary meeting, further infrastructure development to provide better transport facility in both roadways and waterways and at the same time, introduction of "smart offices" to cater to common people in a better way, are going to be some of the key areas on which emphasis will be given in the Transport department's administrative calendar of 2018.

Citing an example of 'smart office", the official said at present, online facility to apply for driving license is available in only a few regions.

Now, if everything goes as planned, then introduction of the online system to apply for driving license in most places in the state in phases will be done.

Representatives of concerned units including West Bengal Transport Infrastructure Development Corporation (WBTIDC), West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC), South Bengal State Transport Corporation (SBSTC), North Bengal State Transport Corporation (NBSTC), Transport Directorate and Hooghly River Bridge Commissioner (HRBC) were present in the meeting.

In the meeting, there were also discussions on the ongoing work of construction of bus stands, jetties, deploying buses in certain routes, addition of more air-condition buses in the existing fleet and installation of more CCTV cameras as per the need at different locations.

Moreover, there was also discussion on filling up of the "residual vacant posts" despite the number of Motor Vehicle Inspectors (MVI) non-technical has gone up to more than 300 from 198 and MVI technical has also increased to 300.