TUHIN SHUBHRA ADHIKARY

Police on March 15 last year seized a mini-truck for using it to attempt a robbery. Since then, the vehicle has been kept at Cumilla Sadar South Police Station. Despite this fact, the mini-truck (Chattogram Metro-NA-11-2608) got its fitness certificate in November.

The fitness clearance was issued from Barishal circle of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority without any inspection, which is a serious violation of the Road Transport Act-2018 and the relevant orders.

Finding the allegation to be true, the BRTA on Tuesday suspended responsible vehicle inspector Pranab Chandra Nag and attached him to its headquarters in Dhaka.

But this is not a standalone incident. A similar incident took place in July last year when a seized truck got its fitness clearance without any inspection.

Some brokers in collusion with a section of unscrupulous BRTA officials received fitness clearance without even getting the vehicles to its offices concerned, sources at BRTA said.

This correspondent talked to two people who also had fitness certificates of their vehicles renewed with the help of brokers without visiting BRTA offices and they said did so “to avoid hassle”.

The lapse in the process came to the fore at a time when questions are being raised about the quality of the BRTA’s inspection itself, which is generally carried out manually before issuing fitness clearance.

Unfit vehicles are considered a major reason for road accidents, which saw a sharp rise in recent years.