India will roll out a vehicle to vehicle communication system this year starting with new vehicles this calendar year that will help reduce accidents, Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari said Thursday.
Real-Time Alerts Without Mobile Networks
“Vehicle to vehicle communication systems are presently available in select countries. This system will allow vehicles to communicate with each other using radio signals on their own without going into the network,” secretary of the department V Umashankar said at a press conference after the meeting of transport ministers of states and union territories.
Standards for the system and devices are being worked out with the automobile manufacturers and once they are finalised they will be notified, he said. The cost of installing the system will come to around Rs 5000 to Rs 7000. Later it will be mandated for older vehicles too.
For the roll out the Department of Telecom (DoT) will be provisioning spectrum free of cost under its National Frequency Allocation Plan (NFAP). “Vehicle to vehicle communication system will be implemented fully this year itself,” Umashankar said.
The state minister and 43rd meeting of the Transport Development Council was also briefed on the vehicle to vehicle communication system roll out. This technology allows vehicles to exchange real time information such as speed, location and braking through an on-board system. It will provide early warning to drivers, including alerts when vehicle ahead brakes suddenly and will also help vehicles identify dark spots.
The DoT has agreed in-principle to allocate 30 megahertz spectrum for the project.
Cashless Care and Citizen Rewards
At the briefing Gadkari said that the government would be rolling out a cashless treatment scheme for road accident victims all over the country soon. It will be for accidents on all national and state roads. The roll out follows successful pilot of the scheme in Uttar Pradesh, Chandigarh, Uttrakhand, Punjab, Haryana and Pondicherry.
Under the scheme any person taking a road accident victim to a hospital will be given an award of Rs 25,000 and would be called “Rahveer”. The minister said that the victim’s treatment for seven days up to Rs 1,50,000 in any hospital will be paid by the vehicle insurance.
In case the vehicle is not insured the funds for the treatment would be provided through Central Road Fund (ERF), Gadkari added.
The minister said the bus body code would be tightened in the wake of fatal incidents in recent months involving buses. Only bus chassis manufacturers will be allowed to build a body. Outsiders in the business would be subject to tough regulations and standards if they have to continue in the business. The meeting of transport ministers also decided to make all city buses accessible with low floor designs, hydraulic kneeling systems, ramps, lifts wheel chairs and additional support handles.
The meeting also reviewed the implementation of vehicle scrapping policy, Gadkari said under the policy 3.94 lakh vehicles have been scrapped till December 2025 of which 1.65 lakh are government vehicles and 2.29 lakh are private vehicles.