Accident raises concern over usage of faulty tyres by commercial vehicles

Kolkata: The accident that claimed four lives on Monday on Basanti Highway was suspected to have taken place due to usage of defective tyres.

Concerns were raised about several commercial vehicles which runs everyday, specially buses using defective tyres.

According to sources, every commercial vehicle has to be produced at the concerned Regional Transport Authority (RTA) office in two years interval to obtain Certificate of Fitness (CF).

During a check, a Motor vehicle Inspector (MVI) checks the condition of the vehicle including brakes and tyres to ensure those are in good condition. Following that CF is provided.

It is alleged that commercial vehicles, including private and mini buses, ply across the city does not comply with the CF criteria.

Though no major accident happen in the recent past, but fatal accident may happen any time.

It is alleged that maximum bus owners use resoled tyre to run the buses. But, despite resoled tyres get exhausted, owners allegedly kept on using the same tyres until the inner lining of the tyres come out.

However, Tapan Banerjee, Joint Secretary of Joint Council of Bus Syndicate denied the allegations and said: "It is not true. Using resoled tyres is authorized by the government. But we do not use bad condition tyres and also do not encourage the bus owners to use such."

Though he claimed that bus owners do not use bad condition tyres, but agreed that some owners may have been using such to save money. But the number of such bus owners are nominal.

According to police, in the Motor Vehicles (MV) Act there are provisions to prosecute vehicles if found using faulty parts in the vehicles. Deputy Commissioner (DC), Traffic of Kolkata Police, Pandey Santosh onn Monday said: "We keep a tab on the issue. Vehicle found using faulty tyres are being prosecuted."