You will have to pay hefty fines, face jail term for traffic violations….Moushumi Das Gupta
If you’re a bad driver, there’s very good reason for you to improve your behaviour on the roads because the government is one step closer to amending a law that will come down heavily on traffic violations.
Not only will offences such as overspeeding, dangerous driving and using your mobile while driving invite hefty fines but drunken driving could even land you in jail for upto three months and get your licence cancelled for the same duration.
After dilly-dallying for four years, the road transport and highways ministry is now ready with the draft Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Bill to regulate road transport in the country.
“Last week, the law ministry had given its nod to the bill. It will now go to the cabinet. Hopefully, it will be introduced in the winter session of Parliament,“ said AK Upadhyay, secretary, road transport and highways.
The ministry seems to have finally woken up to the fact that India has the highest rate of road accident deaths in the world -one death every four minutes.
Last year, the number of people who died in road accidents was a staggering 160,000 across the country.
The new features of the draft bill include graded fines for offences such as drunken driving. This means that the penalty will be directly proportional to the alcohol content found above the stipulated limit of upto 30 mg per 100 ml of blood in the driver’s body.
The fines for various traffic offences have been enhanced between Rs500 for a minor offence to a maximum of Rs20,000 for driving an unregistered vehicle. Currently, the fines vary between Rs100 to Rs5,000.
Besides, in case of death in a road accident, the compensation has been enhanced to Rs1 lakh from the current Rs25,000.