Karwar: A fleet of rusted vehicles parked here have been waiting for ‘nirvana’ for several years, but the time for disposal of their remains has not yet come.
A visit to the excise office premises here, and one will be left surprised to see the number of vehicles that have gone to the dogs. These are the vehicles that have been seized by the excise sleuths during their many raids. Thanks to an unscientific valuation process of the RTO, there are no buyers and over the years, these vehicles have been worn out. All that is left is the mere iron frames of the vehicles that look like skeletons of corpses awaiting burial after the funeral rites have been performed!
Over the last ten years, the excise department has seized over 100 vehicles used for illegal transportation of liquor and other commodities from the Goa border, Karwar, Ankola passing through Anamoda check post. Out of these vehicles, at least 80 are languishing in the excise office premises.
The rule is that if a vehicle is seized by the excise department, the owners of the vehicle can come forward, pay the penalty and get their vehicles released. But the sad part is that the owners of the these vehicles rarely come forward to release the vehicles due to the valuation issues, heavy penalty, rigid rules and cumbersome procedures that are involved. The department too never went ahead to try and auction the vehicles so far. As a result, there is a shocking quantity of vehicles left orphaned here.
If the owners do not come forward to claim the vehicles, the department can auction the vehicles after announcing about the same in newspaper as well as on the notice board of the Excise department.
After decades, about two days ago, the department called for the auctioning 22 vehicles, but since the RTO could evaluate only 12 vehicles over the last three months, the department could put up only those 12 vehicles for auctioning. However, what was disappointing was that there were no buyers at all because of unscientific valuation by the RTO.
“The bikes that were in somewhat good condition were priced exorbitantly. We can buy better bikes outside for much lesser cost,” says a source in the excise department.
All the vehicle thus continue to be housed in the excise department premises.
