Registration of vehicles will start at motor vehicle offices from June 1 with fewer employees at lower levels, the transport department has decided.

Cash counters will remain open between 10.30am and 3pm and visitors will have to maintain norms of social distancing. Barring issuing of new driving licences, all work will be carried out from these offices from Monday.

Senior officials of the transport department said the decision to open the motor vehicle offices was taken by transport minister Suvendu Adhikari within hours of chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s announcement that places of worship could reopen from June 1 with a ceiling of 10 devotees at a time.

Mamata had also said that government offices could start functioning with 70 per cent employees.

Over the past two months, fitness tests of all commercial vehicles had remained suspended. The transport department has decided that 50 vehicles would be tested for fitness every day from Monday.

“Many bus owners have been waiting for two months to get their permits renewed. If private bus services have to resume, the owners would want to get their permits renewed immediately,” said Tapan Bandopadhayay, of the Joint Council of Bus Syndicates.

Other activities like renewal of permit, change of address, renewal of registration and license, and transfer of ownership will resume from June 1, too.

Senior officials said all regional transport and additional regional transport offices would be sanitised ahead of their reopening from Monday. On Saturday, the Kasba office was sanitised. By Monday, the regional transport offices in Salt Lake, Beltala, Alipore and Behala will be sanitised.

“No one will be allowed to enter without masks and there will be sanitisers at counters and help desks at all these offices,” the official said.

Falling revenue was another reason for the government’s decision to reopen transport offices, sources said.

“Revenues of several hundreds of crores had stopped reaching the coffers ever since these offices had been shut down because of the lockdown,” said a senior official of the state government. “No vehicle has been registered for two months. Even fitness tests have not been carried out on vehicles. All this will start from Monday.”

Primary estimates reveal that around 80,000 vehicles are registered every month across the state and they include different varieties, including private vehicles and commercial vehicles . Two wheelers comprise the biggest number.