Source: PRS India & Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways launched a scheme for the implementation of a state-wise vehicle tracking platform for safety under the Nirbhaya Fund Framework.
Nirbhaya fund
- The central government has set up the Nirbhaya Fund which can be utilized for projects specifically designed to improve the safety and security of women.
- It is a non-lapsable corpus fund, being administered by the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance.
Features of the scheme
- Objectives: The proposed system seeks to enhance the safety of women and girl children. This would be achieved by equipping all public passenger transport vehicles with location tracking devices and emergency buttons to raise alerts in case of an emergency. A monitoring centre will be set up in each State/UT to monitor these calls and respond to distress calls.
- System overview: The proposed system will consist of a vehicle location tracking (VLT) device with emergency buttons as specified. This device will send the vehicle location, health status, alerts and other data to the monitoring centre at specified intervals. The Transport Department officials will be able to access the system and monitor the alerts at the centre.
- Implementation: States will notify the timelines for the installation of the VLT devices in vehicles that were registered before January 1, 2019. The VLT manufacturer will enter a unique identification number in the VAHAN database to link the VLT device with the specific vehicle.
- Funding: The total cost of the scheme will be shared between the centre and states as per the ratio mentioned in the Nirbhaya Framework. Funding by the Ministry will include the cost of the backend software, setting up the monitoring centres, training of officials, cloud services for data storage.
Vahan – The Integrated Solution for Vehicle Registration
- VAHAN is a highly flexible and comprehensive system that takes care of all the burdensome activities of Vehicle Registration, leaving the Transport Department to deal with more important business issues. The software enables the processes at RTO/DTO/MLO/SDM involving Vehicle Registration, Fitness, Taxes, Permits & Enforcement to get computerized.
- The State Transport Department is governed by both the Central Motor Vehicle Regulation (CMVR) and state-specific Motor Vehicle Regulation (State MVR). Consequently, Vahan was conceptualized as a product that would capture the functionalities as mandated by CMVR as well as state MVRs.
