Ministerial panel to decide on penalty for underage drivers

To check minors taking control of the wheels, a ministerial panel will decide on stricter penalties for the underage drivers and their custodians in the proposed new road safety bill.
A Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Yunus Khan, Minister for Transport, Rajasthan and comprising state transport ministers will decide on penalties for driving by minors, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari today said.
The GoM which is scheduled to meet here on April 29 will deliberate on all aspects and will propose penalties for such offences and subsequently a wider consultation will be done, he said.
The development assumes significance as minor drivers had caused over 19,000 road accidents in 2014.

The number of accidents by such drivers was 21,496 in 2013 and 20,110 in 2012.
The new road safety bill could not be introduced in Parliament as some states have opposed it saying it encroached on their financial rights.

In order to address this concern as also to bring in a stricter road safety regime, a meeting of state transport secretaries and stakeholders was held here on April 22 to provide inputs for the April 29 meeting.
"All states are on board as far as issues like preventing minors from driving vehicles, curbing drunken driving and simplification of forms for transfer of vehicles are concerned. The bone of contention is taxation. The meeting today decided to concentrate on road safety issues," an official told PTI.

A final decision on the new safety bill will be taken in the meeting and based on that, consent from states will be sought as the issue falls under concurrent list.
Gadkari recently said: "Despite our best efforts, the Bill (Road Transport and Safety Bill, 2015) which we made could not be introduced in Parliament. This is a difficult problem for us. It falls in the purview of concurrent list and both state governments and the Centre have rights. Different lobbies are there who are opposing the Bill."
India accounts for 5 lakh road accidents annually in which 1.5 lakh people die and another 3 lakh are crippled.

The 2015 Bill seeks to come down heavily on traffic offenders and proposes steep penalties of up to Rs 3 lakh along with a minimum 7-year imprisonment for death of a child in certain circumstances, besides huge fines for driving violations.
As a signatory to Brasilia Declaration, India has expressed its commitment to reduce the number of road accidents and fatalities by 50 per cent by 2020.