Motor Vehicle Bill (Amendment) – Pradhan Mantri Yojana

Motor Vehicle Bill (Amendment) 2020 (Fines and Penalty)

What does the Bill plan to achieve?

The Union Cabinet which is headed by the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi has given the approval for the amendment of the Motor Vehicle bill 2016. The amendments are aimed to improve:

• The road accidents – every year nearly 5 lakh road accidents are reported of which 1.5 lakh deaths are reported. By taking this action, the government assumes that the deaths by road accidents will reduce by 50% in the next five years.
• There is a severe shortage of commercial drivers in the country as of now. This bill will help address that issue. The driving training process has been strengthened under this amendment and there will be faster issuance of transport licenses from here onwards.
• The process for testing the automobiles and for obtaining certifications for them is proposed to be fast track. Those agencies that were under automobile testing have now been brought under this Act.
• The delivery of services to the stakeholders needs to be improved and that too has been addressed under this system. This is mainly being targeted to achieve through e-governance. Doing away with educational qualifications for obtaining driving licenses and obtaining licenses through electronic medium and addressing issues of extension of licenses through e-governance are some of the recommendations.

What else does the bill propose?

The Bill proposes:

1. The bill proposes to insert new amendments related to road safety and associated issues that relate to road security. This is why there are to be stricter punishments now for road offences and also stricter regulations to maintain road safety overall.
2. That the State government be able to grant a multiplier. However, this multiplier should not be greater than 10 or less than 1 to be applied for each fine under this Act.
3. That the State government be given the authority to moderate the pedestrians and the means of transport that full under it. This also means that they will be able to regulate the activities under it.
4. That in case there are offences committed by a Juvenile the guardian shall be deemed guilty and the Juvenile himself or herself shall be liable to be tried under the JJ Act. The registration of the motor vehicle in question is also to be cancelled.

The objectives of the Bill are:

• To being harmony in the license and registry process. To achieve this it has been proposed to make a National Register for Driving License and Vehicle registration. This is to be done through “Vahan” and “Sarthi” platforms respectively. This will make the process easier and uniform across the entire nation.
• This also means that their aim is to improve the registration processes. This is why there are new restrictions imposed on temporary registrations while at the same time the registration at the end of the dealer is being enabled.
• To take forward the aim to increase road safety and to prevent road accidents, the bill proposes that there be strict penalties for violation of traffic regulations. Therefore, stricter law against offences such as driving without licenses, drunk driving, juvenile driving, overloading, over speeding and dangerous driving, are to be implemented. There are also stricter provisions for electronic detections and for traveling without helmet. To help the road safety guidelines and to make it clear for the citizens, a Good Samaritan guideline has been created in the Bill. To check whether the vehicles themselves are good to be taken out on the roads or not, automated vehicle testing is proposed to be introduced by 1^st October 2018.
• Transport solutions for Divyang have been pushed forward. To facilitate this, the bottlenecks for obtaining driving licenses have been removed. Also the vehicles themselves are to be made fit to undergo Divyang.

What are the other aspects of this Bill?

Some of the other aspects of this Bill include amendment of the 68 sections out of 223 sections that are currently present. The GoM recommends that there should be a change in the transport scenario in the country because of which certain steps have to be taken. This is one of those steps that need to be taken as per the GoM. This is why this bill has been pushed forward.

As we have already seen by their objectives and their targeted areas of improvement, the Bill aims to make the license availing situation faster. Also through the e-governance the issues such as license availing and extending will become much easier. Road safety is another thing that has been stressed upon under this Bill. This is why perhaps the charges and the penalties for violating road rules have also hiked up.

Here is a list of the proposed amendments for various penalties under the new Bill – 2016 

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