The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs gave its nod to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to monetise 75 publicly-funded highway projects.
It is the projects that are operational and have been generating toll revenues for at least two years after commercial operations date (COD) through the Toll Operate Transfer model that will be monetised.
“The monetisation will be subject to approval of the competent authority in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways/NHAI on a case-to-case basis,” an official statement said. This model would provide an efficient operations and maintenance framework requiring reduced involvement of NHAI in projects post construction completion,” the statement added.
To curb accidents Meanwhile, the Cabinet cleared the Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Bill 2016. The amendments aim to reduce road accidents. Some of the important provisions in the amendments are increasing in compensation of hit-and-run cases to ₹2 lakh and also payment of compensation of upto ₹10 lakh in road accident fatalities.
The Bill also proposes insertion of 28 new sections focussed on improving the road safety and citizens’ facilitation while dealing with the Transport Department.
In case of offences committed by juveniles, the Bill proposes that the guardian/owner shall be deemed to be guilty in the cases of offences. The Juveniles will be tried under the Juvenile Justice Act.
In order to improve the registration process for new vehicles, registration at the end of the dealer is being enabled in the Bill and restrictions have been imposed on temporary registration.