New Delhi: It has been a year since Union Cabinet minister Gopinath Munde died in a road accident forcing the government to promise to build a comprehensive road safety law. However, despite road accidents being one of the biggest killers in India, all that has been observed are several missed deadlines and the law is yet to see the light of day.
Claiming that vested interests are creating problems in passage of the Bill, Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said that the Bill will be presented in the next session of Parliament. "There is big corruption in the transport sector, vested interests are creating problems and have reservations about it," he said.
"Draft bill on road safety has been circulated, it will be taken before the cabinet soon and I am confident that it will be brought before Parliament in the Monsoon session," Gadkari said.
Admitting to problems in the sector, the Union Minister said that nearly 30 per cent licenses in the country are bogus. "I'm aware of the federal character of the country. We want to use e-governance and make the task of giving licenses transparent," he said.
Over 10 lakh people have been killed in road accidents in India in the last 10 years but the country is yet to have a stringent law on the issue. While the initial drafts of the proposed Bill indicated government's seriousness in dealing with the issue of road accidents in India, there hasn't been any considerable progress in formulating the law lately.
Three timelines, all self-imposed by the government, to introduce the Bill have been missed. The government had promised to bring a stringent law within one month of Munde's demise. The timeline was later shifted to the Winter Session of Parliament and thereafter to the Budget Session. In the latest submission, there is a conspicuous silence on the deadline itself.
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