Over 70 per cent overweight cargo, which get delayed by four to six months, for want of timely Government approvals, will now be on the roads within 24 hours, thanks to an initiative by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to process their applications online. Early next week, the ministry is launching an online portal to facilitate faster and smoother movement of over weight and over dimensional cargo.
“This online approval process will be a real time application. This is being worked out to iron out the hurdles in transporting overweight and over dimensional cargo. Since there is no provision for shifting weight above 49 tonnes under the Motor Vehicles Act, all permissions for overweight cargo had to go through various channels, including the Central Government,” said an official from the Ministry of Roads.
“This process of getting approvals from district level regional transport offices, states and Centre would sometimes take as long as six months. This would not just cause loss of money, in terms of demurrages and parking charges, but would also result in projects getting delayed,” he said. Under the new approval process, cargo operators could apply for transportation of up to 169 tonnes online.
“The problem of overloading is most common in the category of cargo up to 170 tones. Now, up to 60-70 per cent operations would benefit with the proposed application process, which will give approvals almost on a real-time basis,” said the official. “Multi-axle hydraulic trailers will be allowed to carry the load as the load is equally distributed all along the axles causing least damage to the roads and bridges. While granting them permissions, we shall issue advisories about the roads and stressed bridges which are to be avoided,” he said.
This online approval process would enable transportation of over weight consignments from factory or ports to project sites. It includes both domestic and as imported consignment transfers. “Timely movement of heavy cargo is crucial for timely completion of big infrastructure projects including metro rails, elevators, power plants, ports and refineries,” said TG Ramalingam, Joint Secretary, Hydraulic Trailer Owners’ Association (HOTA).
“The current procedure of procuring manual permits takes between 20 and 90 days and sometimes takes as long as six months. There are 13 different categories of overweight consignments, which need special permission for their movement using hydraulic trailers, which is very tiresome and lengthy,” he said.
Road Transport Ministry officials said that HOTA had been petitioning to the Centre for online submission of applications and obtaining the permits electronically. The ministry of roads and transport is also going to start a bridge condition survey to create an online centralised registry of all stressed bridges across the country.
“Bids were invited and we have received some responses. We are now going to start appointing consultants. Once we have the results in place, we shall upload them on the portal to help us get handy information on routes to avoid,” said the official.