To certify the 'road worthiness' of commercial vehicles to minimise accidents, a new inspection and maintenance programme is on the anvil. Based on a similar programme in the UK, the country's I&M programme will run on a public-private partnership model at an initial outlay of Rs 7 crore from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
The I&M programme will entail a nationwide comprehensive programme to test and certify, at frequent intervals, a vehicle's 'road worthiness'. The programme gains importance as more than 100,000 people die each year from road accidents in the country, roughly 10 per cent of the world total.
The blueprint for the country's first I&M programme is being prepared by the National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project -- an automotive testing, validation, and R&D agency for automobiles set up by the Ministries of Heavy Industry and Public Enterprises in 2006.
The proposed I&M programme calls for the setting up a central database of all vehicles (passenger and commercial) in the country, which will be made accessible to all I&M inspectors located anywhere in the country.
Moreover, the proposed I&M programme will be a fully automated process with minimal human interference.
Quite different from the current practice of manual vehicle inspection at Regional Transport Offices prone to numerous errors.
"This automated process ensures unbiased vehicle certification and leaves little room for corruption in country where malpractices at RTOs are rampant," said G K Sharma, director, Technical, NATRIP.
Details of NATRIP's evolving blueprint shared with Business Standard proposes a plan for linking I&M certification with fleet operator's licence. "For instance, only those truck operators whose fleet has been tested and certified by an I&M unit will be issued operator's licences to ply national routes," said Sharma.
The I&M blueprint is expected to be ready by July and will be sent to different ministries concerned for the necessary approvals. Recently, the officials from both the heavy industries and NATRIP concluded their visits to the UK and Australia to study the functioning of the respective countries I&M programmes.
"For a start, the I&M plan will roll out in three states and later rolled out to about 30 states. In states like UP, Bihar, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh where vehicle populations are witnessing exponential growth more than one unit of I&M will be set up," said the official.
The I&M model in the UK is largely run by private testing agencies who are audited by the country's Ministry of Transport.
