A slew of changes will take place for vehicles owners in India from today regarding the mandatory carrying of vehicles-related documents. In order to push digitisation and prevent harassment of drivers from traffic police officials, Union Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) has notified various amendments in Central Motor Vehicle Rules 1989 from 1 October, 2020.
Mint take you through these changes in the motor vehicles rules:
1) No physical verification of vehicular documents
All the vehicular documents found validated through electronic means shall not be demanded in physical forms for inspection. It also includes the cases where there is an offence made out necessitating seizure of any such documents. Even e-challans will also be made available on the govt’s digital portal for the perusal of the traffic violators.
2) What if DL needs to be revoked?
If a situation arises where the drivers’ driving licence should be reported for disqualification or revocation for gross violations, authorities can record and report the violators report on the digital portal. The portal will be updated chronologically.
3) No one escapes the new system
The record of the violators will be maintained electronically, and authorities will also monitor the driver behaviour. Not only the violators, the time stamp of inspection and identity of the police officer in uniform or any other officer authorized by the State Government, shall be recorded on the govt portal. The motive is to prevent unnecessary re-checking or inspection of vehicles and remove harassment of the drivers.
4) Where shall you store your vehicular documents?
Drivers can maintain their vehicular documents on Central govt’s online portal like Digi-locker or m-parivahan. No need to mandatorily carry the physical documents anymore. DigiLocker is a government initiative that is aimed at the concept of paperless governance. Self uploaded documents can be eSigned which is similar to the process of self-attestation.
5) Use your phones wisely
Use of mobile phones or any other handheld communications devices while driving shall solely be used for route navigation in such a manner that it shall not disturb the concentration of the driver while driving. Even caught using your phones for any other purpose other than this the offender will be fined under the existing traffic norms.
