As an effort to enhance road safety in India, the Union Cabinet has approved the new Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Bill 2016. “It is a historical step towards making our roads safe and save lakhs of innocent lives”, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari told PTI after the meeting.
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Under the bill, the fine for driving without licence is going up ten times from Rs 500 to Rs 5,000 and penalty for drunken driving going up to Rs 10,000 from Rs 2,000.
Similarly, the penalty for speeding was Rs 400, but the proposed penalties for LMV (light motor vehicle) is Rs 1,000 and for medium passenger vehicle Rs 2,000. A fine of Rs. 25,000 and 3 years imprisonment has been added as the penalty. Driving without a seat belt will now call for a fine of Rs. 1,000 as opposed to the current Rs. 100, while driving without a license will set one back by Rs. 5,000 as against the current fine of Rs. 500.
The Cabinet has also stressed on juvenile driving being a major issue, and has thus proposed that in case of under-age driving, the parent/guardian will be held guilty.
The present Motor Vehicle Act has 223 sections and out of which the new bill aims to amend 68 sections. An official release said, compensation for hit-and-run cases has been hiked from 25,000 rupees to two lakh rupees and in case of fatality it will up to 10 lakh rupees.
Riding without helmets: Riding without helmets will result in ₹2,000 fine and three-month suspension of licence.
The Minister said amendments mainly focus on issues relating to improving road safety, citizens’ facilitation while dealing with the Transport Department, strengthening rural transport, last mile connectivity and public transport, automation and computerisation and enabling online services. The bill proposes to increase penalties against traffic violations to as deterrent measure.
Every year, numerous accidents take place on indian roads and around 1.5 lakh people lose their lives. With this bill, the government hopes to reduce the accidents and fatalities by 50 per cent. Also, Chapter 10 has been deleted and Chapter 11 has been introduced, which has new provisions to simplify and claim third party insurance.
Cab aggregators such as Ola and Uber are also sought to be brought under the licensing rules of state governments under the proposed bill.
To improve the registration process, registration of new vehicles will be done at the dealers point and certain restrictions have been imposed on temporary registration.
Also, to facilitate transport solutions for Divyang, the bottlenecks have been removed in respect of grant of driving licenses as well as alterations in the vehicles to make it fit for use of Divyang. Penalties are also proposed for deliberate violation of safety/environmental regulations as well as for body builders and spare part suppliers.
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Speaking about road safety, there are a lot of changes. Testing agencies (like ARAI) issuing automobile approvals have been brought under the ambit of the Act.
