Hans News Service Tirupati

Clampingdown heavily on tax evasion and passenger safety violations, the District Transport Department has seized two luxury tourist buses and booked cases against 30 other vehicles during a series of intensive surprise inspections conducted over the last 48 hours.

Fines and tax penalties totaling around ₹10.20 lakh were levied during the drive.

Executing orders from District Transport Officer (DTO) Korrapati Murali Mohan, an enforcement squad led by Motor Vehicle Inspector (MVI) Mohan Kumar intercepted a contract carriage operating from Kolkata to Bengaluru.

The luxury vehicle was found plying through the district without paying the statutory All India Permit tax.

The RTO took the bus into custody and slapped the operator with a hefty ₹5,20,000 demand notice covering pending taxes and compound penalties.

Simultaneously, the State Transport Control Room’s high-tech speed-monitoring grid detected an All India Tourist Permit sleeper bus speeding excessively on the Hyderabad-Tirupati route.

Field inspectors tracked down and seized the vehicle immediately. DTO Murali Mohan confirmed that 10 over-speeding cases have been systematically filed under this digital tracking matrix so far. Alarmingly, during physical checks, officials discovered that several interstate operators had deliberately disconnected or tampered with their mandatory GPS tracking systems—a major statutory offence under the Central Motor Vehicle Rules. MVIs Subramanyam, Srinivas Rao, Aatika Naz, Ramana Naik, and Prasad Varma participated in the operations.

The DTO warned that special night-patrolling squads will continue to step up checks against errant private travel agencies.