Bhubaneswar: Following public outcry over imposition of heavy penalties for violating the Motor Vehicle Act, the state government has decided to cut down on fines on people violating traffic norms. Henceforth, normal fines will be collected from the violators, official sources here said Friday.
The Parliament had passed the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2019, July 31 which came to effect pan India from September 1.
Under the new provisions, the state Transport department officials and police imposed heavy fines on defaulting motorists. An auto-rickshaw driver was penalised `47,500 in Bhubaneswar, while many others have coughed up anything between `5,000 and `30,000 each in past five days. In fact, many violators are not in a position to bear the hefty fines imposed on them.
As a result, people became scared and very few vehicles were seen plying on the roads Thursday and Friday.
For the larger interest of people, the state government has decided not to impose heavy fines to the tune of `10,000 or more on road offenders, said the source, adding, enforcement officials have been verbally instructed to impose minimal fines for traffic violations as per the new norms.
Till now, the traffic law enforcement officials were imposing fines for violations of various Sections of the MV Act. But, now they have been asked to impose fines under one or two Sections, depending on the situation, an official of the Transport department said.
Police Commissioner Sudhanshu Sarangi said that the Twin City police are not collecting fines over `1,000 from one road offender.
Earlier in the day, speaking to the media, Transport secretary G Srinivas said, “Since many vehicle owners and even some government vehicles do not have updated PUC (pollution under control) certificates and there are long queues at testing stations and the law now requires issuance of such certificates online. We have instructed the RTOs to go slow on PUC check of vehicles for a month.”
Now vehicle owners can obtain the certificates through online mode or apply for the certificate manually. Under the new legislation, violation of PUC norm invites a penalty of `10,000 as against the previous rate of `1,000 on the first violation and `2,000 for the second one. Urging people to get pollution testing certificates within the next 30 days, Srinivas said Traffic Police and RTO officials should not harass commuters and vehicle owners for not furnishing PUC certificates.
“The officials will have to pay double the amount as penalty under the provisions of the new Act, if found guilty,” he said.
No norms for netas
While the common man is feeling the pinch of hefty fines under the new Motor Vehicles Act, it seems that the new norms are not applicable for political leaders, especially those from ruling party. Many MLAs, who visited the Lok Sabha Bhawan (Secretariat) Friday, were seen openly violating the traffic norms. Senior BJD leader and MLA Bishnu Das, Congress legislator Santosh Singh Saluja, BJD MLA Dhruba Sahoo, former MLA Akash Das Nayak and former minister Anata Das were seen not wearing seat belts while sitting beside the driver of their four wheelers. Bhadrak MP Manju Lata Mandal was also seen not wearing seat belt while moving in her car in Bhardak district. When asked, Bishnu Das said he is wearing two belts. However, while returning, he was seen struggling to fasten his seat belt fearing the media.
