NO RECORD OF BIANNUAL INFO FILED BY AGENTS IN JALANDHAR

Ever since the state government passed the Punjab Prevention of Human Smuggling Act, 2012, which was later renamed as Punjab Travel Professionals’ Regulation Act, 2014, the administration has not received a single return from travel agents in the region.

According to the rule, the licenced travel agents are obligated to provide information about the number seats booked on domestic and international flights to the DC on a biannual basis.

While the administration has somehow succeeded in getting many travel agents in the district on the board to obtain the licence, it has the long way to go to maintain the database of all those travel agents, who have filed biannual information with them.

Currently, the Jalandhar holds no such record.

The district has over 800 unauthorised travel agents and authorities say that they have recently rejected 600 licence applications.

Deputy commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma said there are currently 120 cases pending for police verification, while 126 are under process.

WHAT THE ACT SAYS

As per the Punjab Travel Professional Regulation Act (2014), rule 5 (b), the person, to whom a licence is given for a ticketing agency, shall inform the deputy commissioner concerned, on sixmonthly basis, giving a monthly chart of number of tickets sold by him for domestic or international airlines, as the case may be, in electronic mode on his official email id.