The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, which aims to usher in far-reaching reforms in the transport sector, was finally referred to a 24-member Select Committee of the Rajya Sabha. The committee will have to submit its report to the Rajya Sabha by the first day of the next session "without extension of time".
The legislation aims at bringing radical reforms in the transport sector, ranging from hefty fines for traffic rules violations to improving the licensing system and checking bogus licenses.
A motion for sending the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2017, to the Select Committee was moved by Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Mansukh lal Mandavia in the absence of Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari who is travelling. It was adopted by the House by a voice vote.
The committee includes Vinay P Sahasrabuddhe, Ajay Sancheti, Shwait Malik, Ram Vichar Netam, P Bhattacharya, BK Hariprasad, Pramod Tiwari, Javed Ali Khan, A Navaneethakrishnan, Manish Gupta, Harivansh, CP Narayanan, Pratap Keshari Deb, CM Ramesh and Vandana Chavan.
The other members of the committee are Veer Singh, Kanimozhi, Anil Desai, Naresh Gujral, Nazir Ahmed laway, Ram Kumar Kashyap, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Narendra Jadhav and Swapan Dasgupta.
The bill, which would amend the nearly 30-year old Motor Vehicle Act, 1988 was passed by the lok Sabha last year but had got stuck in the Rajya Sabha where the opposition had demanded that it be sent to the Select Committee for proper scrutiny. The parliamentary standing committee had also examined it. last week leaders of all parties had decided to send the Bill to a Select Committee.