Transport ministers take up slew of measures on road safety

The Group of Transport Ministers of the states constituted by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways met under the chairmanship of Yoonus Khan, Minister for Transport and PWD, Rajasthan, on Thursday in Guwahati.

The meeting was inaugurated by Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal.

The meeting was also attended by Assam Transport Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary and transport ministers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Haryana, Meghalaya, Jharkhand and Rajasthan.

All the 11 participating states resolved to analyse the road accidents data and to make serious efforts to reduce the accidents.

The states will undertake a sustained road safety campaign throughout the year to control and curb the delinquent actions of motorists/drivers.

A committee was also formed to examine and frame a National Road Safety Policy and Code.

It was agreed that process of issuing driving licenses be strengthened by way of adopting and setting up of infrastructure like automation of driving test so as to ensure objective and quality testing for applicants.

The ministers felt that there is a strong need to reform the vehicle fitness regime. This would be done through technology based inspection Centres to be set-up either by the state Governments or through PPP mode.

The group also noted that variation of levy of tax on private vehicles within the states be minimized, so that the people do not tend to go for registration of their vehicles in lower tax jurisdiction.

In order to ascertain seamless transportation of tourist buses, a consensus among the states emerged that a composite annual fee model be implemented throughout the country, as has been done for the national permit trucks since 2010.

The issues pertaining to removal of hassle in renewal of license, removal of variation in charges/fees/renewal rates among states, promoting public transport and shared mobility, environment friendly transport via e-vehicles etc were deliberated and consensus made out to achieve all the objectives.