Motor Act to be amended to aid project materials transport

The Heavy Industry Department plans to amend the Motor Vehicles Act to facilitate hassle-free transportation of massive project materials anywhere in the country, a top official said today.

Talking to reporters, Department of Heavy Industry Secretary B S Meena said at present, companies like BHEL -- which manufactures heavy and huge power plant equipment -- face hurdles in the transportation of materials to sites for upcoming thermal and hydel projects.

The ministry had convened an interdisciplinary meeting recently to assess the difficulties and problems, Meena said.

Strategic recommendations have been presented to the Road Transport Ministry, National Highways Authority of India and others, enabling them to introduce certain amendments in the Motor Vehicles Act, he said.

He said the Road Transport Ministry has extended its support to the proposal, but before tabling the Bill in Parliament, some state governments have to revise the regulations.

He noted that on some state government highway routes, materials of weight exceeding 50 tonnes are not allowed to ply and mega-sized hydraulic cranes are also disallowed in some important road sectors.

The amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act are expected to give much-needed relief to heavy industries in the country, enabling them to comply with the rigid delivery schedule for equipment required for various projects across the country.

The Railways Ministry has already sanctioned a single-window clearance system for power plant equipment, enabling companies like BHEL to mobilise materials without any delay and procedural wrangles, he said.

On an unrelated note, Meena said the Heavy Industries Department has taken up the revival of sick industry units on a war-footing. Since 2004 the Centre has identified 33 sick heavy industries, out of which the revival of 18 industries had been taken up, he said.
Hindustan Photo Films in Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu was also included in the agenda, he said.

On the overall performance of heavy industries, Meena said the "grey areas" were in vogue in the sectors of textile machinery manufacture, production of high-end machine tools and mining equipments manufacture.

He observed that there were no takers as regard to machine tool manufacture since private entrepreneurs hesitate to evince interest in the investments and  the mining equipments sector do not seem to match the global standards.

He said the Ministry was examining proposals of establishing cluster backed common facility centres, financial or strategic support for implementing new technologies, requisite programs to bridge skill development gap faced by the industries and also grey patches in R&D wings.

For the above, planning commission had already issued its nod and pending some clearances from other ministries the concept of common facility centres would crystallize hopefully in the next six months, he said.

As of now the locations and industries specific facility centres were yet to be finalised. However, he said, the models will be in the format of industry and government participation on a fifty-fifty ratio investment.

Meena, who visited BHEL complex here, said "days are not far off when BHEL Trichy Complex will clinch an annual turnover of Rs 20,000 crore." (In the year 2009-10 BHEL Trichy clocked a turnover of Rs.10,008 Crores maintaining Y-o-Y growth rate of 35 per cent plus).