Road Ministry issues draft notification on old vehicles; proposes mandatory installation of fitness certificate

Vehicle Fitness certificate New Rule: The Ministry of Road Transport has issued a draft rule regarding fitness for old vehicles. The ministry has issued a draft notification for this. The department has now made it mandatory for old vehicles to have their fitness certificate on their windshield. Regarding which objections/suggestions have been sought from all stakeholders as well as the public within 30 days. 

What is the format?

• On old vehicles, the fitness certificate will be applied to the windshield. 

• In this format, the validity of the fitness certificate should follow this format of DD/MM/YYYY for the date, along with the registration number of the vehicle should be written below. 

• The department has allotted two types of formats’ design for this-

(i) One for heavy vehicles, and

(ii) second for small vehicles.

• Passenger vehicles will have a certificate on the left side.

• Apart from this, on heavy, medium and small goods vehicles, i.e. passenger vehicles, this certificate will have to be put on the windshield on the left side. In addition, these vehicles will have to write in yellow colour on the windshield of their vehicles with a blue background.

• Apart from this, it will be very important to apply fitness certificate for small vehicles e-rickshaw autos as well. Also, in vehicles that do not have windshields, it will be mandatory to put it on the body, from where it’ll be evident.

There are around 51,00000 Light Motor Vehicles (LMV) in India that are more than 20 years old, and 34,00000 LMV are more than 15 years old.

According to the data of the Ministry of Road Transport, around 17 lakh medium and heavy commercial vehicles are more than 15 years old without a valid fitness certificate.