The new MV Act has brought radical changes in entire transport sector, which intends to bring down fatalities in road accidents which are the highest in India. According to some, lack of safety awareness and reckless driving of two wheelers are major reasons of such accidents.
The deterrent aspect of the new law is very good. It also ensures protection to citizens, by-standers and co-travellers helping an accident victim in arranging medical care as such efforts had hitherto the instinct of fear from possible harassment from law enforcing agencies. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s steps to connect metro cities of the country by 4 lanes NH revolutionized road network, but road accidents are still on the rise. The National Highways witness roughly 60 % traffic of commercial vehicles while other 40 % are plying in State highways. The MV law intends to improve India’s traffic standard to the level of any western country.
But the moot point is the Government should first ensure a hassle-free regulating system by making road development, maintenance and traffic justice system transparent and accountable, and raise road standard at par with standards in western countries. In western countries road safety violation makes the agencies accountable but in India it is not so.
There are several black spots in various road networks due to faulty design, lack of aftercare. The traffic justice and registration system needs to be modernised, decentralised and expert oriented to eliminate chance of manipulation and harassment. The provision of penalty relating to disobedience to authorities, overloading, jumping red light, pollution, not possessing DL are excessive and likely to be exploited by checking staff in the context of the system being perceived as corrupt.
Now fine for want of pollution certificate is raised from Rs 1,000 to Rs 10,000 and for lack of DL certificate, the fine is raised to Rs 10,000 from Rs 1,500. The traffic fines should be compatible to the capacity of the common man.
Hence some of the provisions are quite alarming and cause fear in the mind of common people. Vesting too much power with the executive authorities in the Act would touch parameters of excessive legislation and may result in arbitrary use of authority.
It is also necessary to provide more checks and balances to make the system fair and transparent. Any traffic checking must be in presence of a transport officer or a police DSP. Late night checking should be banned and fixing a time frame for disposal of appeals against imposition of fine would be in public interest.
Pollution
Since vehicles cannot be off the road as they are lifeline of the society, some amount of pollution is unavoidable. It is necessary to strengthen engineering standards to make the vehicles robust and less polluting. There should be constant research on reduction of carbon dioxide emission and on fuel economy for which manufacturing and engineering standard needs constant monitoring.
Let the Government strengthen research and development to convert existing vehicles to run them from fuel to other powers as well as for production of cheap electric cars with more sustainable charging devices to make such vehicles affordable to common man.
The present day bodies of the vehicles are made of low quality steel which gets rusty within 5 years, while brass bodies of British day Austin is still intact. Business lobby world over is always eager to fix life of vehicles to increase sale of motor vehicles, while quality of vehicles like its body, safety measures is ignored. Old industries and other hazardous manufacturing units considerably pollute environment. Has government ever examined as how many industries are functioning with obsolete machines and outdated process adding more carbon dioxide to the environment?
Felling of trees is a major contributor to rising pollution, which necessitates conserving water and planting trees on every available space to check growing pollution.
Many Highways were built by the British Empire and royal houses in pre-independence days where plantation of fruit bearing trees on road sides were an usual practice.
Trees like jam, mango, and tamarind were earlier planted on road sides. But today such qualities of tress are rarely planted. The act should have mandated for compulsory planting of trees on the NH sides to eliminate effect of carbon dioxide emission from vehicles and sound vibration.
New scrap policy
Road safety or pollution has little to do with life of a vehicle. People still use British day vehicles as a matter of pride. 10% of people just keep a car as a mark of social pride and they hardly travel 500 km a month in their 4 wheelers. They upkeep their vehicle in decent condition and take as much care of them just like the care they provide to their near and dear.
Upkeeping a vehicle or engaging a driver costs a family Rs 20,000 to 25,000 a month which they find difficult to face. Therefore under the British, the motor vehicle law permitted extension of registration of old vehicles on the basis of fitness.
Most of the car owners in India belong to middle class who purchase vehicles on loan for personal use and find it difficult to repay their loan. Limiting life span of private vehicles to 20 years in Indian context is not acceptable as it is beyond the capacity of middle class people to change vehicles every 20-25 years.
Epidemic had caused loss of jobs to thousands in urban areas. More than 5 millions of youths are engaged in driving Autos and taxis. Lockdown/shutdown affected their livelihood at many places. This is regarding small taxis, autos which are mainly plied by individual drivers to sustain their livelihood. Thus the new scrap policy would hard hit common man. It is economically and technically disadvantageous to common man. Even old part market scraps would fetch 7-8 % of the original price, while official policy would fetch 4-6 % to a private car owner. 25 % of commercial vehicles like mini truck and tractor are owned by middle class families who own these units as self driven and as a source of livelihood.
Skill development for drivers
Inexperienced driving and lacking skill is a major contributor to road accidents. The Union Government should adopt a national policy for improving driving skills of citizens. More than 1 million people are engaged in driving which has potential for employment generation. The Government should actively intervene to open more and more technical schools with approved sites to train drivers for skill development.
Reform of insurance sector
Before giving effect to new MVI Act, the Transport Ministry should have enforced a comprehensive policy on insurance. The insurance sector is increasingly expensive and exploitative.
Issues like base premium, liability of insurance, limiting claim disposal period, extending insurance cover periods of private vehicles, two wheelers and agriculture inputs like tractors need to be considered to ease common man’s difficulties.
(The writer is a former Deputy Speaker, Odisha Legislative Assembly. Phone: 9437412877/7437009009, E-mail: pandarcp@gmail.com)