At a press conference held in Rajasthan, Dr Kamal Soi, an international road safety expert, and the President of Raahat NGO stated that there are many unapproved vehicles, in terrible condition yet overloaded with goods, traversing the roads of Rajasthan. The owners and drivers of such vehicles do not care about the safety of their passengers or the havoc they can wreak. Since they are merely concerned with the monetary benefits that they can amass, immediate legal action must be taken against these unfit vehicles, which pose a serious threat to passengers, pedestrians and motorists alike.
Dr Soi and his team expressed their concerns to dignitaries such as the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Transport Authority of Rajasthan and Governor of Rajasthan to ensure the removal of such vehicles that are like “moving coffins” on Indian roads and must be stopped from plying. The pressing need of subjecting them to scrappage as per the scrappage policy formulated by the CMVR 1989 was also expressed.
Raahat NGO, under the guidance of its President Dr Soi, filed the petition in presence of the Division Bench of Hon’ble High Court of Rajasthan, Jaipur. The petition filed by Dr Soi stated: The existing regime of fitness checks of motor vehicles in the State of
Rajasthan is faulty, Certificates of fitness are provided indiscriminately and in contradiction to the mandate laid down under the Central Motor Vehicles (21st
Amendment) Rules, Gross abuse and blatant malpractices are prevalent in the State of Rajasthan in the matter of the issuance of vehicle fitness certificates in Rajasthan, There is no implementation of the mandatory statutory provision “Automated testing station” as referred to under the CMV Act 1988 and Rules of 1989, The guidelines effectuated by the Central Government vide GSR:652 (effective from 25.09.2021) have still not been implemented, enforced / or acted upon by the State of Rajasthan.
Jaipur has figured at Rank No.2 in the Ranking of the Top five cities in 2019 in terms of accidents and related deaths. As per the Report of MoRTH for Road Accidents in India – out of the top 15 states, the State of Rajasthan is 7 th in rank in 2019. In the deaths caused by road accidents in the State of Rajasthan, road accidents were 21,743 in 2018 and 23,480 in 2019.As witnessed, there has been an 8% increase in the numbers of accidents and the figures are only augmenting owing to the failure of law enforcement and regulatory practices.