Surface transport minister Kamal Nath has been targeting the monsoon session to table the Bill.
The road transport and highways ministry may not be able to introduce the Bill to amend the central motor vehicle Act 1989 during the monsoon session of Parliament.
Surface transport minister Kamal Nath has been targeting the monsoon session to table the Bill.
The committee formed to recommend changes in the law has failed to meet the mid-June deadline.
Confirming this, a senior ministry official said, “The committee has not yet submitted its report.” Also, there are indications that the review process may linger for some time. “The Act is humongous and there are many clauses and sub-clauses to be reviewed,” said the official.
The ministry has been delaying the Bill since Nath took over the ministry in May last year.
The ministry first planned to finalise the draft amendments by February this year, but later revised it to June. With the committee’s report still not in, the tabling of the Bill in the monsoon session of Parliament is a distant possibility.
Amendments to the Act suddenly came into picture when the government woke up to the fact that regulations governing the road carriages haven’t kept pace with the development in the auto and transport sector.
The amendment thus aims at streamlining the law with the current development in the sector. Going forward, the changes include defining the multi-axle vehicles, over-dimensional carriers and vehicle carriers-the backbone of a buzzing economy.
Additionally, keeping in view the lack of inspection and maintenance for vehicles in the states, the proposed changes aim to grant central assistance to the States and ensuring strong compliance to traffic rules.
However, till date the Bill has had a convoluted journey. The Bill was first drafted by the ministry during the UPA-I regime in 2007 and approved by the Cabinet and presented in the Rajya Sabha the same year, before getting entangled in red tape.
After being tabled in the Rajya Sabha, the Bill was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on transport headed by Sitaram Yechury. The Yechury panel, on its part, recommended changes that the ministry implemented and prepared a final draft.
The matter, according to senior ministry officials, got delayed when the new government was formed last year and Kamal Nath took over the ministry and referred it to a different committee.
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