Draft rules for road freight law in a week

Registration of common carriers to be made mandatory.

The final draft report on the rules to be made for enforcing the Carriage by Road Act, 2007, will be prepared in a week. After three postponements, a meeting of the working group to suggest draft rules for the Act took place on Tuesday. “The draft report will be prepared in a week’s time and will be sent to the minister,” said a source in the ministry.

The Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training (IFTRT), represented in the committee, has alleged that the chairman announced he would prepare the final report in a week’s time and would not invite further comment. “The chairman has announced that he will distribute the final report in a week and will not invite any comment on the same,” said IFTRT Convenor SP Singh. The committee is headed by SK Dash, joint secretary in the road transport ministry, and has members from finance and law ministries. It also has members from the All India Motor Transport Congress, the All India Truckers Welfare Association, the All India Confederation of Goods Vehicle Owners Association (AICGVOA), the Confederation of All Indian Traders and the IFTRT.

People in the know said members of the AICGVOA were not present in the meeting. Previous meetings were scheduled on July 21, July 30 and September 1. The committee first came up with draft rules on December 1, 2008, but these were changed and new ones circulated on July 15 this year.

In the new draft rules, the penalty to be charged in case of loss of freight was changed from Rs 20 a kg to 12 times the transportation fee. However, the transport booking companies want the penalty to be a flat Rs 50,000.

Also, the transport booking companies are against the net worth clause of Rs 20 lakh needed to get a company registered under the Act. They want this removed. The clause says that in case of discrepancies, the licence will first be suspended and then revoked. The transport companies want a fine to be charged. The Bill was tabled in Parliament in December 2005 and passed in August 2007.

It aims at regulating the common carriers, limiting their liability, and declaration of the value of goods delivered to them to determine their liability for loss or damage.

It also defines the fine to the paid by the common carrier in case of damage to goods.

This Act makes registration of common carriers, who register goods and are the link between the truckers and the persons who get their goods booked, mandatory. There are estimated to be around 250,000 common carriers in the country and 4.4 million truckers and the size of this business is Rs 3,25,000 crore.