The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2016

The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2016 was introduced in LokSabha in August 2016 by the Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Mr. Nitin Gadkari. The Bill seeks to amend the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

Aim

The government is committed to reducing accidents and fatalities by 50% in five years. The Act provides for standards for motor vehicles, grants of driving licenses, and penalties for violation of these provisions.

Features

• The Bill increases the penalties for several offenses under the Act. For instance, the maximum penalty for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs has been increased from Rs 2,000 to Rs 10,000.
• Stricter provisions are being proposed in respect of offenses like juvenile driving, drunken driving, driving without a license, dangerous driving, overspeeding, overloading, etc.
• The provision of the bill includes an increase in compensation for Hit & Run cases from Rs. 25000 to Rs. 2 lakhs. It also has a provision for payment of compensation options 10 lakh in road accidents fatalities.
• It proposes to improve the transport in the country by permitting the states to grant exemptions in Stage carriage and contract carriage permits to promote last-mile connectivity.
• It also proposed to improve the delivery of services to the stakeholders using e-Governance through enabling online learning licenses, increasing validity period for driving licenses, and doing away with the requirements of educational qualifications for transport licenses.
• To help the road accident victims, Good Samaritan guidelines have been incorporated in the Bill. Good Samaritan will not be liable for any civil or criminal action for any injury to or death of an accident victim.
• The Bill also proposes to mandate automated fitness testing for the transport vehicles with effect from 1st October 2018.
• This would reduce corruption in the Transport Department while improving the roadworthiness of the vehicle.
• To bring uniformity of the registration and licensing process, it is proposed to create National Register for Driving Licence and National Register for Vehicle registration through “Vahan” & “Sarathi” platforms.
• To facilitate transport for Divyang (persons with disabilities), the bottlenecks have been removed for getting driving licenses as well as alterations in the vehicles to make them fit for use of Divyang.
• The Bill allows the central government to order for the recall of motor vehicles if a defect in the vehicle may cause damage to the environment or other road users.
• The Bill requires to development of a National Transportation Policy, in consultation with the states.

Why India needs Road Transport reforms?

• Roads play a very important role in the transportation of goods and passengers for short and medium distances.
• It is comparatively easy and cheap to construct and maintain roads. Road transportation in India faces a number of problems.
• The most important problem of all is the rapidly growing population of motor vehicles and increasing commerce.
• Every year 5 lakh road accidents are reported in the country in which 1.5 lakh people lose their lives.
• The number of registered vehicles increased from 306 thousand in 1950-51 to 58,863 thousand in 2001-02, thereby registering about 210 times increase in a span of half a century.
• Thus the carrying capacity of our roads has not been able to keep with the increase in vehicles. This has led to traffic jams, delays, accidents, and environmental pollution.
• Another one on the list is India’s road length, which is about 75.01 km per 100 sq km of an area which is desperately low as compared to countries like Japan (294.6 km) and Austria (131.2 km).
• Another problem is that a little less than half of the roads (40%) are unsurfaced. They can be used only in fair weather and become muddy and unfit for transportation during the rainy season.
• A country needs an effective and efficient transportation system to attain economic development through better access to markets, employment, and additional investments. Also, citizens who are deprived of transportation infrastructure miss out on several economic opportunities.
• Thus the government should push for a comprehensive move towards sustainable development of road transport and safety.