Mysuru:  The newly-built Regional Transport Office (East) in city at Rajivnagar is likely to become functional from the second week of August. Tenders have been invited to furnish the RTO Office at a cost of Rs. 46 lakh and works on electricity, water and computer connectivity are likely to be completed by the end of July or the first week of August.

For the record, RTO East is functioning at a rented building on Rajkumar Road and the State Government is paying a monthly rent of Rs. 75,000. The building was completed a year ago and works that were to be carried out in the final stages including furniture and connectivity were inordinately delayed.

Deputy Commissioner and senior RTO (West) M. Prabhuswamy, speaking to Star of Mysore, said that they would want to shift to the new set up that also houses city’s first automated vehicle driving test track as soon as the works are completed. “Interiors, installation of scanners, CCTV cameras, safety equipment and computer connectivity is going on and we need about a month or so to complete the works,” he said.

The building comprises a cellar and two floors of office space, spanning more than 4,000 sq mts. Built at a cost of Rs. 9.30 crore at an eight-acre-10-guntas land near Narayana Hrudayalaya on the Ring Road, the track and the building has been constructed under the e-track project.

The new building has been designed to accommodate a parking lot, electrical maintenance room, fee remittance centre, and treasury in the cellar, while the ground floor will have a reception, biometric section, accounts office, record room, driving licence centre, inspectors’ rooms, and the office of the Assistant RTO.

After the Office is open for public, works will start on the track. Temporarily, the track will be used to test drivers. Once fully operational, the long-winding and separate testing tracks for two, four and six-wheelers will surely test the driving skills of a person. 

The project of automated vehicle driving test track was conceptualised in 2015 when the need of an exclusive testing track was felt. Later, the land was handed over by Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) to the Transport Department which took up the track-laying works.

The tracks are designed in such a way that the manoeuvring skills of the driver are tested. Some of the tracks have been designed in ‘8’ shape to test the skills of negotiating a hairpin bend. Road humps have been laid and there are elevated tracks that resemble a steep gradient.

At the gradients, drivers will be asked to stop their vehicles at the middle and will be asked to proceed further after some time. This is to test their ability to steer the vehicle ahead in real-life situations.

Automated sensors and scanners will be installed at the sides of the track at vital points along with a series of CCTV cameras to monitor the driving. The sensors will have alarms and it will beep if a driver faults while giving the test. Every move of the driver is scanned and recorded and one error leads to disqualification.