Acts & Bills / Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill
28 July 22, 2019VERY day, some 405 people
die in India in 1,274 road
accidents. In 2017, as many
as 4,64,910 road accidents
were reported, which killed
1,47,913 people and injured
4,70,975. Over-speeding accounted for
70.4 percent of the accidents and most
of the victims were in the productive
ages of 14-45 years.
Even though Transport Minister Ni -
tin Gadkari proposes to introduce the
lap sed Motor Vehicles (Amendment)
Bill in the ongoing session of Parlia -
ment, he must look at curbing some
vexed issues of road safety. Gadkari att -em pted to get the Bill passed in the last
Lok Sabha, but could not pull it thro -
ugh. The Bill was a direct result of the
sudden death of Union Minister Gopi -
nath Munde in a road accident in June- After Gadkari introduced the Bill
on August 9, 2016, it was referred to the
Standing Committee on Transport, Tou -
rism, and Culture on August 16, 2016.
The rise in the number of road
acci dents has kept pace with the expo-
nential rise in the number of vehicles.
Pi yush Tewari, founder of Safe Life
Foun dation, told India Legal: “The Bill
has many progressive firsts and if imple-
mented properly can transform the road
safety scenario in India. With robust
road safety provisions, the Bill rectifies
the archaic Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. It
introdu ces liability on road contractors
and engineers for faulty construction
and poor maintenance of roads that lead
to deaths. Liability on autho rities and
engineers will go a long way in ensuring
better roads and reducing deaths which
can be prevented.
“With 17 people losing their lives
every hour and the country losing threeRevolutionary Road
Despite the growing number of road accidents, the Bill has not been passed in Parliament.
Will the monsoon session bring about a change and succour for lakhs of victims?
By Ramesh Menon
E
PLAYING WITH LIVES
Recently, a bus fell into a canal off the
Yamuna Expressway, killing at least 29 peopleUNI