Hike in penalties for traffic violations round the corner

NEW DELHI:The Cabinet approved proposals to sharply increase penalties for traffic violations such as drunk driving, driving without licence and insurance for the vehicle, over-speeding and not wearing seatbelts and helmets. The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill 2016 that the Cabinet approved on Wednesday will now go to Parliament for clearance from lawmakers.

In the Bill, the road transport and highways ministry has proposed to increase compensation in case of hit and run cases to Rs10 lakh from Rs2 lakh. In case cab aggregators and operators are found violating licence rules, it proposes a fine ranging from Rs25,000 to Rs1lakh. "We expect that the amendment Bill would be taken up in Parliament next week. These reforms would completely transform the transport sector while strengthening roads safety," said road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari.

As per the proposed amendments, the government will also enable online learning licences, increase validity period for driving licences and do away with the requirements of educational qualifications for transport licences.

To help road accident victims, Good Samaritan guidelines have been incorporated in the Bill. It also proposes to mandate the automated fitness testing for transport vehicles with effect from October 2018. If a juvenile is found driving, the guardian or owner of the vehicle would be held responsible and the registration of vehicle would be cancelled, the Bill proposes. A jail term of three years has also been proposed. It proposes also faster issuance of transport licences.

MONETISATION OF PROJECTS

Around 75 operational national highway projects completed under public funding have been preliminarily identified for potential monetisation using toll-operatetransfer model. The Cabinet Committee on Economics Affairs cleared the proposal on Wednesday.

The government plans to bid out highway projects to private equity firms, pension funds and sovereign funds for long term. The ministry expects to raise Rs55,000-Rs60,000 crore through this model. "The corpus generated from proceeds of such project monetisation could be utilised by the government to meet its fund requirements regarding future development, operation and management of highways," a government news release said.

CENTRALLY SPONSORED SCHEMES

The Cabinet has accepted the recommendation of a sub-group of chief ministers on rationalisation of centrally sponsored schemes (CSSs), bringing down total number of such programmes to not more than 30 as against 66 now. The sub-group was set up under the chairmanship of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan in pursuance of a decision made in the first meeting of the governing council of the NITI Aayog on on February 8, 2015.

The sub-group recommended that existing CSSs should be divided into core and optional schemes. The core schemes should comprise those related to the National Development Agenda where the Centre and states will work together. The schemes will be for social protection and inclusion.

Optional schemes would be the ones that states would be free to choose. "Funds for these schemes would be allocated to states by finance ministry as a lump sum amount," the release said.