The Department of Transport Management (DoTM) has booked 79 buses that violate its 20-years and over age ban within two days of launching the nationwide campaign last Thursday.

The department banned public and private vehicles older than 20-years public effective last Thursday. It had said traffic department would impound such old vehicles.

On Friday, the first day of the drive, the department booked 59 vehicles older than 20 years across the country. The department did not find any 20-year-old vehicle in Kathmandu. DoTM Director General Rupnarayan Bhattrai said, “We won’t let anyone to violate this rule. We will be strict. We have mobilised traffic police and transport officials for this campaign. The booked vehicles will be kept for auction and go for scrap.”

The department found some schools and tourist entrepreneurs using old, rickety and unfit vehicles to transport students and tourists.

On Friday, the department booked one tourist bus and three school buses.  Officials booked the tourist bus from Gandaki zone and three schools buses from Narayani zone, according to information officer at DoTM Tulshi Ram Aryal. In 2017 February, the Cabinet had announced the ban on the public vehicles older than 20 years from plying inside Kathmandu Valley, but the authorities failed to enforce the decision strictly. 

This campaign is not the first; the department had taken a similar decision in January 2015 as well.