DIG Keshav Prasad Adhikari, newly appointed MPTD chief who resumed his office about ten days ago, informed that he has been working on plans including a crackdown on vehicle modification and unwanted sound in the wake of growing public complaints.
He said, “We have found that many vehicles in Kathmandu are modified creating several problems.”
According to the MPTD, the vehicles that are modified, motorbikes in particular, run the high risks of being involved in accidents. DSP Pawan Giri, spokesperson of MPTD, said that the modified vehicles lose their original features and are unfit for roads under auto-engineering phenomenon.
The seat, leg guard, looking glass, among others, are not properly installed in line with auto-engineering system, as a result of that there are high risks of accidents, DSP Giri said.
"We have found several modified motorbikes, whose looking glasses are fixed in such an odd position that the rider of motorbikes won´t be able to use them properly," he said.
The seats are modified in a way that the rider of the bike either has to lean aside or have to stretch back to see the looking glass, he said. The distance between the rider and the handle is also not proper after they are modified. “With the help of upcoming campaign, we hope to caution vehicle modifiers as well,” he said.
But we can´t resist those vehicles that are brought in the market which are already modified by the company itself, DSP Giri said. As those manufacturing-company- modified vehicles are well-tested before they are brought to the market and manufactured according to the auto-engineering phenomenon, there is no point resisting such modified vehicles, he added.
MPTD is also planning to discuss with the related authorities if the vehicles used for public transportation are manufactured meeting the standards in terms of weight, seat arrangements, and entry and exit doors and so on.
We found that many body building companies have been constructing the vehicles not as per the auto-engineering phenomenon, said Giri, adding, once the chassis of the vehicle is brought, the body builders prepare all the infrastructure of the vehicles. As none of the stakeholders are inspecting or regulating them, many vehicles are unfit technically, he said claiming that it is also one of the causes of many accidents.
The new traffic Chief Adhikari said he will also focus on transforming the manual operation of traffic points into technology-based. Recently, the traffic police began installing 16 CCTV cameras at different areas known for heavy traffic flow.
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