Soon, there will be no need to grease few palms, and going through all the red-tapism in order to obtain a driver’s license in India.
New Rules have been proposed to enable the setting up of Accredited Driver Training Centres across the country under Nitin Gadkari by The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. In order to secure a license now, time-bound completion of training in these centres will be required. The move also brings India on a par with other developed countries which have linked driver training with issuance of licenses
Amendments in the Central Motor Vehicles Rules have been suggested like enabling such training centres. For all the aspiring drivers, “techniques of fuel-efficient driving” have been included in the training module.
For the next 30 days, government is inviting comments/objections from the public on the draft notification, post which final version will be notified and be part of the official rules.
What is the update to Central Motor Vehicle Rules?
According to Rule 14, which detailed what all is needed along with the application, is now tweaked a bit. As opposed to earlier rule which said that one must, along with application, produce things like necessary documents, a learner’s license, and even a certificate from an authorized driving training school, now one must also produce “Certificate from Accredited Driver Training Center in Form 5B as per rule 31E, if any.”
The proposed rules have insert these changes so that the certificate is enough to secure a license without performing a test at the licensing authority’s office.
Rule 15, according to the draft notification will also include anyone who holds a certificate from an Accredited Driver Training Centre, shall be exempted from performing a driving test. Previously, the rule mandated mandates driving test as a prerequisite to evaluate the competence of an aspiring driver, or a candidate for a license.
“Knowledge and understanding of fuel efficient driving technique” has been added to skills and knowledge that a candidate who is looking for driver’s license must possess. This is new addition to the existing pre-requisites which included knowledge of traffic signals, duties of a driver in an accident etc.
Accredited Driver Training Centres
For anyone who intends to set up these training centres, an accreditation fee of Rs 50,000 must be paid. After approving the applications for accreditation to the driver training centres, the license to run the center shall be granted for a period of 5 years.
To get a license, there is total of 29 hours of training that a candidate will have to go through in four weeks. This includes 21 hours of practical. This shall include four hours in simulator, virtually driving through rain, fog, night etc.
When it comes to medium to heavy vehicles, there is a total of 29 hours of training that a candidate will have to go through over a spread of 38 weeks. This will include 21 hours of practical which in turn would include three hours on a simulator and also on track as well as on road driving sessions. Remaining 17 hours will be theory classes which in turn would educate the aspirant about road rage, etiquettes of good driving habits.
Refresher and remedial courses and also user-specific courses will also be offered by the centre.
Why this change?
In India especially in the transport sector, there is a shortage of over 2 million drivers.
Driver fatigue as well as road crashes are linked behind this by studies. Studies reveal that almost 84 per cent of road accidents take place due to faults of drivers.
Nitin Gadkari said that the ministry wants to open driving training centres particularly in the tribal area for people who are educationally, socially and economically backward.
Since driving is about possessing a skill and not really about educational qualification, hence the previous criterion of having minimum educational was done away with by the government two years ago.
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