Road ministry to come up with graded point system on driving licences to track offences

The ministry of road transport and highways will soon come up with a graded point system for driving licences to track offences, deduct points and temporarily suspend or permanently cancel the license after the prescribed limit on the number of offenses has been breached.

The move is one of the many initiatives being undertaken by the ministry across road engineering, automobile engineering and behavioural changes to curb road accidents which has touched 5 lakh a year with annual fatalities at over 1.8 lakh, road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadakari said.

“Under the graded point system for driving licences, we will cut points on every offense and after a particular limit is reached, the license will either get suspended for six months or even canceled permanently, if the offences continue,” Gadkari said on Thursday while speaking at the 3rd National Conclave on Road Safety, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).


Gadkari further said his ministry has identified 100 top districts with high rate of road accidents and identified their black spots and will work with a targeted approach to reduce accidents and eventually make them zero fatality districts.

Going forward, the ministry plans to even name and shame the states and districts which continue to register higher number of road accidents and fatalities.

“Likewise we have also identified 350 land-sliding spots in the Himalayan terrain and the ministry has picked up 235 such spots in the first place to fix the problem on priority basis to avoid road accidents and deaths due to landslides,” Gadkari said.

According to Gadkari, 50% of road fatalities can be avoided if the victim reaches the hospital within the Golden Hour. “The ministry has decided to deploy up to 400 high-tech and fully equipped ambulances with sufficient rescue tools at key National Highways under the supervision of state governments to ensure that these reach the accident spot within 20 minutes to rescue the victims and transport them to the hospital,” he said.

Gadkari reiterated that his ministry is now giving preference to performance audits of all consultants working on detailed project reports (DPRs) for highway development to ensure good quality DPRs are made. Thai will address, to a great extent, the issue of road engineering.

Further, efforts are being made to standardise the construction of buses, tractors and trailers to address the issue of automobile engineering to prevent road accidents happening due to faulty designs. “After the success of Bharat New Car Safety Assessment Program (BNCAP), we plan to come up with similar standards for E-Rickshaws to enhance safety standards,” he added.