Motor Vehicle Bill to be re-drafted in a month: Nitin Gadkari

NEW DELHI: The demise of senior cabinet minister Gopinath Munde in a car accident has put the focus on road safety in the country, with the road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari announcing that several steps based on international standards will be taken to improve road safety in India within the coming months.

The announcement came after the minister held a meeting with the department officials on the issue on Thursday. Domestic car manufacturers may need to improve safety mechanism in their cars. A new law will be brought in to address the situation, Gadkari said.

The bill will mandate CCTV cameras at all traffic signals, improvement in design of heavy vehicles and centralisation of data to check misuse of driving licences He said traffic safety norms of countries such as the United States, Germany, Canada, Singapore and Japan would be studied and within one month a bill would be formulated based on the international standards.

The legislation will be brought to Parliament after consultation with all stakeholders including state governments. Amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act were formulated during the previous Congress-led UPA government and passed by the RS but these were never taken up in Lok Sabha.

The amendments, based on the Sundar Committee report, included harsher punishments for offences such as drunken driving and violation of traffic rules. However, the new surface transport minister made it clear that he was not in favour of either the Motor Vehicles Amendment Act or the Sundar Committee report and that the current government would bring out a fresh bill for road safety.