For women safety: ‘Use Nirbhaya fund for vehicle tracking system’

In the letter dated January 15, the MORTH has asked the states and the union territories to apply for the assistance by February 15.

The proposed system seeks to enhance the safety of the women and the girl children by equipping all the public passenger transport vehicles with the vehicle location tracking (VLT) device and emergency buttons for raising an alert in case of emergency.

The tracking device and emergency buttons would be installed in public passenger vehicles like cabs, taxis, auto rickshaws and public buses. All the state and the UTs would have monitoring centres to watch out for alerts and coordinate with state emergency response support system for responding to distress calls. 

“Since very little progress could be achieved on setting up the monitoring centres, it was felt necessary to support the states under Nirbhaya Framework to set up monitoring centres at the earliest so as to effectively implement the vehicle tracking system and ensure safe commute to the women and children in public passenger transport vehicles,” the letter said.

The Ministry earlier had mandated VLT device and emergency buttons be fitted in all public service vehicle from April 1, 2018, which was re-examined and it was decided to give exemption to all public service vehicles that were registered till December 31, 2018 (old vehicles) from these requirements till the time as notified by state and UT governments.

All public service vehicles registered on or after January 1, 2019, must be fitted with VLT device and emergency buttons, it has said.

Noting that the 37 state and UTs have been categorised into four categories based on the number of vehicles and geographical area for determination of maximum project cost, it said the Centre would provide 60 per cent assistance for states, which do not fall in difficult terrain, while 90 per cent to states under difficult terrains and 100 per cent in case of UTs. It said that the total project will cost about Rs 463.90 crore out of which Central assistance will be to the tune of Rs 332.24 crore.

A senior official in the state transport department said that they would take a decision on the scheme after discussing the guidelines threadbare.