Jalandhar admn cracks the whip on illegal travel agents
ROW OVER LICENCE FEE
JALANDHAR: In the last one week, the Jalandhar commissionerate police have inspected over 100 travel immigration offices, booking 20 travel agents working illegally and issuing notices to 12 to upgrade their licences.
The action followed directions from the state government to deputy commissioners (DCS) to take stern action against the agents following poor response to the Punjab Travel Operators Regulation Act 2014.
The Act made it mandatory for agents had to get licences to operate.
Data collected from the police reveals that Jalandhar district has the third highest number of immigration cheating and fraud cases with around 80 cases registered from January 2017 to March 2018. Mohali tops the list, followed by Hoshiarpur.
According to the police information, around 800 immigration agents had applied for licences under the Act, but only 388 had received them till May 31.
While the remaining licences are under process, delayed mostly because of incomplete documentation and non-payment of fee, 153 applications had been rejected by the authorities.
“Despite repeated reminders Earlier, travel agents were demanding a reduction in the licence fee, besides the removal of some clauses in the Act. Due to this, most of them had not submitted proper documents.
Assistant commissioner (general) Baljinder Singh Dhillon said that as per the Act, those who were in the travel business for more than five years had been asked to deposit ₹1lakh, while others had to deposit ₹25,000. The fee levied on the air-ticketing agents was also ₹25,000, but agents were earlier reluctant to pay the sum in one go.
by the local administration, a slew of travel agents have failed to submit proper documents to get registered with the authorities. Following this, a special drive was launched in the city last week,” assistant commissioner (general) Baljinder Singh Dhillon, said.
Dhillon said 30 licences had been issued in the last seven days and around 50 licences were being processed to be issued this week to immigration agents who had submitted the required documents.
The local administration had issued directions to all travel agents, International English Language Testing System (IELTS) coaching institutes, consultancies and general sale agents asking them to register at the sub divisional magistrate’s (SDM) office and the MA branch two years ago, but many of them had not responded.
TRAVEL AGENTS HOLD MEETING
Meanwhile, after the police action last week, travel agents had held a meeting with DC Varinder Kumar Sharma and informed him that the MA branch had delayed issuing of licences to them even when they were ready to pay the required fees and submit the documents.
Later, Sharma moved the licence issuing work from the MA branch to the DC court branch and directed the officials to clear all the files within a fortnight. He also assigned eight special officials to ensure timely disposal of the files related to travel agents by the administration.
Saying the district administration was committed to strictly comply with the Act, Sharma said that even those travel agents who had applied for the licence but had not received them could not operate.