SRINAGAR: The Legal Metrology Department which ensures uniform standards for weighing and measurement has been found to be sitting over reforms that could have made its functioning better.
As per the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG’s) report, the department has performed poorly due to the non-utilisation of sanctioned money for up-gradation of its infrastructure.
“The department could not modernise and transform the manual practice of verification of weigh bridges, due to which human interface could not be minimised,” the report reads. Mobile testing kits meant for making manual testing better was not followed either, it added.
“These kits have now become scrap as they now do not adhere to the new norms for registration of commercial vehicles and the department could not recover the projected revenue (user fee) of Rs 10 lakh annually since its receipt in 2008,” the CAG noted.
As per the report, the department had projected a minimum revenue of Rs 10 lakh per annum by using these mobile testing kits. But the vehicles were not used due to non-availability of drivers and required funds for maintenance.
The CAG remarked that the failure to engage drivers and trained staff for operating mobile cranes fitted with weigh bridge testing kits defeated the intended purpose to modernise and transform the manual practice of verification of weigh bridges. As a result, an amount of Rs 1.18 crore remained unutilised.
Not only that, but the estimated revenue collection of Rs 90 lakh for nine years remained dismal at Rs 17.74 lakh, it added.
A vehicle given to the department in March 2012 was put to use only for three years and remained non-functional since July 2018 due to non-availability of a driver.
The non-adherence to rules was such that many of the vehicles were neither registered with the transport department, nor any efforts were made in this regard so far, the CAG reported.

Junaid Nabi Bazaz