Govt rules for movement of vehicles between India and its neighbours

Govt rules for movement of vehicles between India and its neighbours- A draft notification of the new guidelines was issued Saturday by the ministry of road transport and highways inviting suggestions from all, including the general public.

The Centre on Saturday proposed to issue guidelines for facilitating movement of passengers and good vehicles with neighbouring countries and amend existing motor vehicle rules.

A draft notification of the new guidelines was issued Saturday by the ministry of road transport and highways inviting suggestions from all, including the general public. Hindustan Times has reviewed a copy of the draft.

The proposed rules will be called the Central Motor Vehicles (Regulation of Bus Service between India and Neighbouring countries of India (Movement of Vehicles Carrying Goods and Passengers) Rules, 2020.

According to the draft rules, the transport department, government of any states of India (as mentioned in MoU) will be responsible for the conduct of the bus service and will perform various other duties assigned to them.

It will be the duty of state police to provide security to the bus service. A DIG rank police office shall be assigned such responsibilities. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) will be the nodal intelligence agency coordinating the intelligence related issues for smooth conduct of bus service.

The bus service will be running for as many days (as mentioned in MoU) and frequency will be reviewed by the state transport department. “The bus service shall follow the designated routes as mentioned in MoU and the state transport department will decide the halting place for the buses. The state transport department will take care of formalities like provisioning of tickets, debugging of bus, roadworthiness of the bus, frisking/checking of passengers, handling of luggage, etc, before departure from the designated place. The various agencies shall perform responsibilities assigned to them at ICP (integrated check post) of India,” the draft rules state.

The proposed rules also say that the dri  vers shall carry a regular permit for transport vehicle valid for one year and renewable upto a maximum period of five years on a yearly basis. In addition to the registration number assigned to a transport vehicle operating under the agreement by the competent authority, the following particulars shall be painted in English and in official language of the respective country [each letter being not less than two inches (five centimeters) high and two inches (five centimeters) wide, legibly painted on a plain plate or plates affixed to the vehicles], including i) Place of India – Place of India Neighbouring Country – Place of India (on front side and back side of such transport vehicle in a conspicuous place) and the name of the operator of the bus service (on both the sides of such transport vehicle).

This ministry said it had been receiving requests from various government departments and states regarding supporting rules required under the provisions of Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, for the facilitation of movement of vehicles carrying goods and passengers between Indian states and other neighbouring countries from time to time.

To be clear, India presently does not have central guidelines for facilitating movement with neighbouring countries. According to a ministry official, these will be the first standard guidelines to streamline movement with neighbouring countries.

The ministry has at present notified rules for the facilitation of bus service between Amritsar and Lahore (2006), between New Delhi and Lahore (2000), between Calcutta and Dhaka (2000) and Amritsar and Nankana Sahib (2006).

All such regulations have been finalised to facilitate operations under MOUs which have been signed between India and other neighbouring countries. In 2018, India also notified rules regarding movement of Bangladesh registered LPG trucks in Indian territory for supply of bulk LPG to the LPG Bottling Plant at Bishalgarh in Tripura.

Source: https://bit.ly/2Dl91S3