Draft rules for Road Transport Act partially finalised
A committee formed by Road Transport and Highway Division has partially finalised a draft of rules for Road Transport Act-2018, two months after the much-talked about law came into force.
The committee led by Abdul Malek, an additional secretary of RTHD, finalised four chapters out of 14 chapters of the law -- which are necessary to carry out day-to-day functions of the law, officials said.
Upon receiving the final draft, the division called an inter-ministerial meeting for January 19 to finalise it, they said.
Abdul Malek said they have requested their top authorities to appoint a consultant for finalising the rest of the rules, as some complicated issues like formation of a trust for giving compensation to road accident victims are there.
“We have finalised the draft rules which are required for day-to-day function of the law,” he told The Daily Star yesterday.
Following an unprecedented student agitation, the parliament passed the Road Transport Act in September 2018 to bring discipline to the road transport sector.
But the government did not make the law functional, saying preparing rules for the act is a must for execution of some of its sections and it would be made effective after enactment of the rules.
Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) submitted the draft rules for the act in May last year and a 10-member committee, led by Abdul Malek, was formed to scrutinise the rules.
The committee, however, decided to make the rules afresh as the draft had many inconsistencies.
Meanwhile, the government on October 22 last year issued a gazette stating that the law would come into effect from November 1 -- without enacting the rule.
Transport owners and workers protested several sections of the law and its execution without the rules, forcing the government to relax several sections till June this year.
The government said the Motor Vehicles Ordinance-1984 will remain in force until the new rules come.
Wishing anonymity, a member of the committee said BRTA, from the beginning, requested the Road Transport and Highways Division to appoint consultant to prepare the rules due to a lack of dedicated manpower and necessary expertise of legal issues.
So, the draft rules BRTA prepared needed a lot of changes, and as the law already went into force, they finalised the rules for four chapters related to licence, route permit and registration of vehicles, he said.
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