PANAJI: With less than seven months to go for assembly elections, the state government has decided to not implement the amended Motor Vehicles Act until the polls are over, transport minister Mauvin Godinho told TOI.
On January 19, during a video conference with ministers from 20 states, Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari had said that it is compulsory for all states to implement the amended M V Act, which came into force across the country on September 1, 2019.
“Giving any relaxation to implement the act does not arise because the whole idea behind enacting the act is to bring new culture among Indians and to cultivate good driving habits,” Gadkari had said and added that the PM Narendra Modi-led government had enacted the act very consciously.
However, the proposal to implement it was kept in abeyance in January as BJP politicians and functionaries felt that most roads in the state are in a bad shape.
This time, the implementation has been kept pending because the state BJP unit felt that it would put additional burden on the people in the state during the pandemic.
Sources said that there is apprehension in BJP that the implementation of the stiff hikes might go against the party for the upcoming assembly polls as the road condition is bad.
The transport department had moved a proposal to the chief minister’s office to bring it before the cabinet for approval to implement the amended M V Act with “bare minimum” fines for traffic violators. As the proposal was moved, BJP requested chief minister Pramod Sawant to keep the proposal on hold.
In April, the state government had notified penalties for violations under the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, which was to come into force in Goa from May 1. However, after BJP state president Sadanand Shet Tanavade demanded that its implementation be kept in abeyance, the state government put it in cold storage.
Some states, including Gujarat and Uttarakhand, had raised concerns about some of the hiked fines and had lowered penalties for certain traffic violations.
Later, the Centre had announced that no state government could lower the traffic penalties below the prescribed level, as the Act was a parliamentary legislation and state governments could not pass any law or take executive action unless the President’s assent was obtained to the related state law.
