COURTESY TOI JUNE 26
Centre mulls stiffer penalty of ₹10,000 for blocking ambulance
Jail Term Also Proposed In Bill To Be Tabled In Parliament
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
New Delhi:
The government is set to introduce changes in the Motor Vehicle Act to introduce stiffer penalties — including fine and jail—for traffic violators. The bill, likely to be introduced in Parliament in the next few days, proposes Rs 10,000 fine for drink driving and blocking way of emergency vehicles including ambulance, fire brigade and PCRs among other things.
Though a section of road safety activists has been demanding some changes in the bill that was passed by the previous Lok Sabha and subsequently lapsed due to dissolution of the House, the government has gone ahead with the old version of the legislation. Some of the experts had suggested the government to roll back provisions on transportrelated issues and focus only on safety.
“There is no change in the bill except some grammatical corrections. It was examined by the Select Committee and was also passed in Lok Sabha. Since every lapsed bill must be approved afresh by the cabinet, so the procedure has been followed,” said a source. Before the last general elections, the bill got stuck in the Rajya Sabha.
The bill provides for a uniform driving licence and vehicle registration processes across states by setting up online national registers. Similarly, there is a provision for holding guardians or owners of vehicles guilty for offences committed by juvenile drivers and even cancelling registration of the vehicle used by them.
The legislation also proposes giving compensation of up to Rs 10 lakh in case of hitand-run cases and has introduced some new provisions including Rs 1 lakh penalty on agencies or contractors for faulty roads resulting in fatalities and doubling the fine for personnel working in traffic, police and transport departments for violating the norms. Another provision is penalty in the range of Rs 25,000 to Rs 1 lakh for taxi aggregators violating licensing conditions.