Ministry dilutes penalties proposed in road safety bill

TNN

New Delhi, 31 Mar 2015: After making tall claims of bringing road safety laws of disciplining drivers to reduce road deaths drastically, the road transport ministry has watered down the penalties it had originally proposed in the Draft Road Transport and Safety Bill. 

 

While the original draft had proposed to dramatically step up punishments for rash driving including the provision of seven years of jail if negligent driving resulted in the death of a child, the final version has brought it down to at least one year. Even the fine has been brought down from Rs 3 lakh to only Rs 50,000.

 

There are similar dilutions in the penalty provisions whether it’s rash and negligent driving or driving under the influence of alcohol and even overloading besides other offences. Though road transport ministry officials admitted that the original provisions have been "watered down", the ministry will get power under the proposed law to increase the fine and other penalties including imprisonment, suspension of driving licence and impounding vehicles. 

 

As per the final version available on the ministry’s website, while the older versions had provisions for fine from minimum Rs 5,000 to maximum 12,500 for repeat offences for overspeeding, now it has been brought down to Rs 1,000 to Rs 6,000. In the case of drunk driving and under influence of alcohol, the fine has been brought down from Rs 30,000 to Rs 10,000, which can be increased to Rs 20,000 in case of repeat offence.

 

 

"When we proposed high fine at par with the best international laws, there was huge opposition to this. The focus of bringing down penalties is primarily for first-time offenders. The draft bill is in circulation and it has to be passed by the Parliament. There is enough scope for changes. Moreover, under the proposed law we won’t need to pass amendments in the Parliament to increase or decrease penalties for traffic offence," a ministry official said. 

 

He added that there was a view that very high penalty would increase malpractice and bribing of traffic policemen. But in the light of Supreme Court’s observation, changes can be incorporated. 

 

Meanwhile, road safety experts have ridiculed the revised provisions. "The original provisions would have taken care of almost 80% of the concerns expressed by the Supreme Court. We had shared our apprehensions from the time the ministry came out with path-breaking provisions that we need to wait till the final bill is out," said S P Singh of IFTRT, a Delhi-based think tank on road transport issues. 

 

India has a notorious record of registering highest number of road deaths - over 1.38 lakh in 2013 - and most of the fatalities are on account of overspeeding and drunk driving put together.