New Motor Vehicles Act Rules Effective From 1 October

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways released a notification on amendments made to the Central Motor Vehicle Rules 1989, which will become effective from 1 October 2020.

"Use of IT services and electronic monitoring will result in better enforcement of Traffic Rules in the country and will lead to removing harassment of drivers and would facilitate the citizen," the ministry said.

New rules for the amendment to the Central Motor Vehicles Rules 1989 for certain provisions of the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act 2019, was also notified last week.

Electronic documentation

• Details of driving licences disqualified or revoked by the authorities shall be recorded chronologically in the portal and such record shall be reflected on a regular basis on the portal.
• The disqualification record will be maintained electronically and further, the driver behaviour would be monitored.
• Provisions have been made for the procedure for Production and Obtaining Certificates in physical as well as electronic form.
• If the details of the documents are found validated through the electronic means by the enforcement officer then physical forms of such documents shall not be demanded for inspection, including in cases where there is an offence made out necessitating seizure of any such documents.
• Demanding or inspecting any documents, the date and 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 Portal. This would help in unnecessary re-checking or inspection of vehicles and further would remove harassment to the drivers.
• Vehicle owners can maintain their documents related to license and vehicle on the government's online portal like Digi-locker or m-parivahan.

Mobile phones can be used for navigation purposes only while driving

"It has been provided that the use of handheld communications devices while driving shall solely be used for route navigation in such a manner that shall not disturb the concentration of the driver while driving," the statement said.