Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill tabled in LS; proposed law provides for stiffer penalties, regulation of cab aggregators

New Delhi: The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2019 was on Monday introduced in the Lok Sabha with Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari urging the members to pass it to save lakhs of lives who get killed in road accidents every year. The Bill, which seeks to amend the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, was opposed by the Trinamool Congress and the Congress. “The Bill takes away from the power of the state government to improve rural transport infrastructure. It infringes upon the rights of the state,” Trinamool’s Saugata Roy said. [caption id=“attachment_4839811” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Union minister Nitin Gadkari. PTI[/caption] Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury also opposed the parts of the legislation, saying that they are against the constitutional powers of the state. Addressing their concerns, Gadkari said that the parts of the Bill opposed by the Opposition leaders do not infringes upon the rights of the states. “The Bill was prepared after consulting 18 transport ministers from various states. It was also screened by the Parliamentary standing committee and the joint select committee. It was passed by the Lok Sabha but could not be passed in Rajya Sabha,” he said. The Union Minister said that every year around 1.5 lakh people die in road accidents and the Bill would a step ahead to save these lives. “Around 30 percent driving licences in the country are bogus. Getting licences in India is most easy. People have no fear of law and they do not care of the fines of Rs 50 or 100,” he said. Gadkari hailed the Tamil Nadu government for reducing the road accidents up to 15 percent and admitted that it was failure of his department that despite several efforts it could only reduce up to 4 percent accidents. “We want to go ahead with the Tamil Nadu model. There is no politics in it and neither the Bill infringes upon the rights of the states. So to save the lives of lakhs of people every year, please get this Bill passed,” he said. Increasing penalties of traffic violations, addressing issues on third-party insurance, regulation of cab aggregators and road safety are among the changes proposed in the amendment. The amendment Bill proposes to omit a clause of the Motor Vehicle Act to decide how to maintain their registers for driving licenses, to centralise vehicle registration data and achieve standardization. It also proposes a National Transportation Policy for ushering guidelines on the transportation of goods and passengers.