Govt notifies 63 clauses of Motor Vehicles Act

The government has notified 63 provisions of the Motor Vehicles Amendment Act 2019, including the ones dealing with enhanced penalties for various traffic offences, an official release said on Wednesday.

The new clauses would come into effect from September 1, 2019.

These are provisions which require no further amendments in the Central Motor Vehicles Rules 1989, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said in a statement.

"For the remaining provisions the Ministry has initiated the process of formulating draft rules. As and when the process is completed, the relevant provisions would be notified for implementation," it added.

The 63 clauses deal with penalties, licences, registration and National Transport Policy, among others.

The new law enhances penalty for unauthorised use of vehicles without licence to Rs 5,000 from up to Rs 1,000.

Besides, the penalty for driving without license would go up from up to Rs 500 to Rs 5,000.

The new rules also enhance penalty for drunken driving to imprisonment up to 6 months and/or fine up to Rs 10,000 for first offence and imprisonment up to 2 years and/or fine of Rs 15,000 for second offence.

Besides, the new rules enable state governments to designate any person/agency as the enforcement agency to detect and impose penalty on overloaded vehicles.

The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill 2019 was passed by Parliament earlier this month.