Motor Vehicle rules: The government on Saturday said maintenance of vehicular documents, including driving licenses and e-challans, will be done through an information technology portal from October 1, 2020. Also read: JEE Advanced 2020 Question Papers uploaded; direct links here

Vehicular documents found validated through electronic means shall not be demanded in physical forms for inspection, it said and added that details of driving licenses disqualified or revoked by the licensing authority will be recorded and updated chronologically in the portal.

“Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) has recently issued notifications regarding various amendments in Central Motor Vehicle Rules 1989 requiring the implementation of enforcement, Maintenance of Vehicular Documents, and E-Challans through portal w.e.f 1.10.2020 for better monitoring and enforcement of MV Rules,” MoRTH said in a statement.

No physical verification of documents

Vehicular documents found validated through electronic means shall not be demanded in physical forms for inspection. Details of driving licenses disqualified or revoked by the licensing authority will be recorded and updated chronologically in the portal.
If the details of the documents are found validated through the electronic means by the enforcement officer then physical forms of such documents shall not be demanded inspection, including in cases where there is an offense made out necessitating the seizure of any such documents, the statement said.
Details of driving licenses disqualified or revoked by the licensing authority shall be recorded chronologically in the portal and such record shall be reflected on a regular basis on the portal has been provided for, the government said and added, thus the record shall be maintained electronically and further the driver behavior would be monitored.
“Further upon demanding or inspecting any documents, the date and time stamp of inspection and identity of the police officer in uniform or any other officer authorized by the State Government, shall be recorded on the Portal. This would help in unnecessary re-checking or inspection of vehicles and further would remove harassment to the drivers,” the statement said.
Drivers can maintain their vehicular documents on Central govt’s online portal like Digi-locker or m-parivahan.

Mobile phones only for route navigation

The new rules mandates that the use of handheld communications devices while driving shall solely be used for route navigation in such a manner that it shall not disturb the concentration of the driver while driving.

The government also said that certain amendments in the Motor Vehicles (Driving) Regulations 2017 have been made to align it to the Amendment in the Act like the use of the handheld devices, an inspection of documents in electronic form, etc.

Mean-while, India on Monday recorded 82,170 fresh cases of the coronavirus disease (in the last 24 hours), which pushed the nationwide tally to above 60 lakh, according to a Union health ministry update on Monday morning.

The latest million cases came in just 11 days.

Out of the 60,74,703 cases, 9,62,640 are active cases while 50,16,521 patients have been cured or discharged from hospitals, the health ministry data showed.

At least 1,039 people succumbed to the disease in the last 24 hours which pushed the death toll to 95,542.

Delhi, meanwhile, recorded 3,292 new cases of the disease which pushed the number of infections in the national capital to 2,71,114. More than 40 deaths due to Covid-19 were reported in Delhi for the second consecutive day on Sunday.

With this, the number of deaths in the national capital has gone up to 5,235.

The health ministry, meanwhile, said on Sunday that India recorded 10 lakh recoveries in the last 11 days

India’s total recoveries cross the landmark milestone of 50 lakh. The rise from 1 lakh in June ‘20 has been steep. The last 10 lakh recoveries were added in just 11 days,” the health ministry said on Twitter.

It added that recovered cases have outpaced active cases by over five times.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the cumulative total samples tested up to September 26 is 7,12,57,836. The number of samples tested on September 26 is 9,87,861.

India is the second-worst hit nation in terms of Covid-19 cases after the US, while it is in the third spot in terms of fatalities globally after the US and Brazil.