Centre mulls stringent road transport Act

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari says the 1998 Act is outdated and needs to be revised

Hyderabad: The BJP-led NDA government at the Centre would soon enact stringent Road Transport Act to check misuse of licensing policy and ensure road safety in the wake of increasing number of ghastly road accidents. Disclosing this while interacting with the media here on Wednesday, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Jairam Gadkari pointed out that the 1998 Road Transport Act had become outdated as it contained many loopholes which were being exploited to procure driving licenses easily.

Gadkari further explained that a whopping five lakh road accidents took place in the country every year claiming innocent lives to the tune of three lakh besides injuries to another three lakh persons. Keeping in view this dismal scenario, the Union government had determined to enact a stringent Road Transport Act and had already studied similar laws prevailing in the USA, the UK, Japan, Singapore and other countries for enactment in our country too, he added.

The Union Minister said henceforth applications for driving license would be processed online and then decide whether an applicant was eligible or not for the license. Once the process of examining the applications were completed online, the driving licenses would be issued within three days. This would check procurement of driving licenses by dubious methods and the number of road mishaps would also come down drastically after the new Act was enforced, he hoped.

Gadkari said the Centre would also take required measures to improve water transport in the country by making judicious use of the rivers. While water transport system was to the tune of 47 percent in China and 44 percent in Korea and Japan, it was only 3.3 percent in India, he pointed out and said that there was ample scope for developing and improving water transport in the country and accordingly the government was making plans in this regard. The Union Minister, who is also holding the Shipping portfolio said steps would be taken to develop dry ports in Telangana State. Steps were also being initiated to complete the process of division of RTC between AP and Telangana States, he said.