‘Illegal’ trailers to become legal

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More than a decade after India’s largest truck trailers came on road to transport cars from factories to dealers and ports, the government has woken up to the fact that they are ‘illegal’, simply because the motor vehicle rules have not been changed.

These vehicles, which are the backbone of India’s automobile revolution, do not find a mention in the Central Motor Vehicle Rules (CMVR), 1989. So every time the large trucks with their load of eight to ten cars come out of factory gates, they are liable to be penalised. The state police forces do that routinely, citing grounds of non-conformity to the general rules regarding dimensions mentioned in the CMVR. But at the same time, these vehicles are duly registered with the state transport authorities.

There are around 15,000 such vehicles in the country. Maruti Udyog Ltd, for instance, uses a fleet of around 6,000 vehicles. On an average, around 300 vehicles leave the factory premises everyday.

The ministry of road transport and highways has, therefore, begun framing regulations for these registered vehicles, by amending the CMVR. Saroj Kumar Dash, joint secretary in the ministry, told FE, “These vehicles do not find any mention in the rules. Owing to this, they face problems in movement from one state to another.” The move, as he explained, is aimed at ensuring a seamless movement of the vehicles from one state to another.

Why did this situation emerge? Under Rule 93 of CMVR, the maximum length of double-decked rigid body truck must not exceed 16 metre in the case of truck trailer or a tractor trailer combination. Its width should be a maximum of 2.6 metre. The present dimension of a double-decker tractor trailer is far bigger at 22 metre, with a height of 4.75 metre and a width of 2.85 metre. The original dimensions were written at a time when the road lengths were far narrow and the auto boom had not happened. But despite the new giants having hit the road at least a decade ago, state and central government forgot to change the rules. Dash acknowledged that this has been exploited by states, which have started penalising the operators for not complying with the general regulations mentioned in CMVR.