The Kerala cabinet on Wednesday approved reduction in most of the fines for traffic offences that were hiked steeply by the central government through an amendment of the Motor Vehicles Act recently. The fine for drunk-driving, however, will remain at Rs 10,000.
The fines for not wearing helmet and seat-belt has been halved from Rs 1,000 to Rs 500. The fine for using mobile phone while driving will be Rs 2,000. For over-speeding, the fine would be Rs 1,500 in the first instance and Rs 3,000 for repeat offences. In a major relief to freight carriers, the fine for over loading has been reduced from Rs 20,000 to Rs 10,000.
A high-level meeting of ministers and officials convened by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in September had decided to explore the areas where the hiked penalty rates can be brought down.
Transport Minister AK Saseendran had said that a draft will be prepared detailing on whichever penalty can be brought down by the state itself.
The meeting in September had also decided to entrust Transport Secretary KR Jyothilal with preparing a draft and making another round of deliberations before finalizing the revised penalty.
“The draft was prepared and the notification was put before the cabinet for approval. It’s from the draft that the list of fines on which the state itself can decide was chosen,” the minister’s office told TNM.
Earlier it had been decided to write to the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari for more clarity on the increase in fines under the amended Act and also to the MPs from the state to intervene in the issue.
However, it is not just Kerala that has slashed the rates. As soon as the amendment was brought in, many of the BJP ruled states had announced that they would slash the rates. This included Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka. In the past few weeks, many states have reduced almost all the fines, except for drunk driving.
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