56% of vehicles not insured, SC says challan them
The Supreme Court of India has proposed linking vehicle fuel access to valid insurance status to address the issue of 16.5 crore uninsured vehicles on the road. The court also directed authorities to use ANPR cameras and digital databases to issue automatic e-challans to owners of uninsured vehicles.
Why it matters
With 22% of road accidents involving uninsured vehicles, this move aims to ensure accident victims receive timely compensation and improve overall road safety compliance.
NEW DELHI: If your vehicle is not insured, you may not be able to get fuel from petrol pumps in the near future. Supreme Court Tuesday suggested this as one of the measures to tackle the problem of uninsured vehicles plying on roads and also directed that cameras deployed on highways and roads be used to identify such vehicles and send challans to owners.Expressing shock that nearly 56% of vehicles plying on Indian roads remain uninsured (most of them two-wheelers), a bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Prashant Kumar Mishra said the purpose behind mandatory insurance under Section 146 of the Motor Vehicles Act gets defeated, resulting in victims of road accidents being forced into prolonged litigation to get compensation. In absolute terms, the stark figure of uninsured vehicles stands at 16.5 crore vehicles out of a total of 30.4 crore registered vehicles.
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