Bihar prepares a cab aggregator policy

In its bid to promote urban mobility, the state transport department has finalised the draft aggregator policy to pave the way for entry of big players in cab service sector.

This was stated by transport secretary Sanjay Kumar Agrawal at a press conference to apprise the media persons about achievements of the last year and objectives for the new year here on Saturday.

As part of the annual ritual, ministers and executive heads of all the departments interacted with the media on weekly basis at the beginning of new year to brief the media persons about their new action plans.

Briefing about the new policy, Agrawal said the draft aggregator policy had been framed under section 103 of the Bihar Motor Vehicles Act 1992 and the same would be notified in the next few weeks.

“The policy has been framed in such a manner that would not only ensure safety of the passengers, but also encourage big investments in the cab service sector,” said Agrawal in presence of departmental minister Santosh Kumar Nirala.

The secretary further said that the policy would also help create employment of a lot of skilled youths in the state, besides regulating healthy growth of private transport system to ease travelling for people across the city, as they will have several options.

About the recently launched Mukhya Mantri Gram Parivahan Yojna (MMGPY) launched in October last year, Agrawal said around 25,600 people had applied for getting grants from the government to purchase passenger’s vehicles.

“As many as 11,929 persons have qualified for the grant of Rs 1 lakh each in the first phase. Selection of beneficiaries of the second phase is on,” said Agrawal.

The state government has planned doling out grants to five vehicles in each of 8463 panchayats across the state under the MMGPY.

The scheme intends to create about one lakh direct or indirect job opportunities.

Taking road safety as a serious issue, the department has allocated Rs 1.33 crore to all 38 districts for training and other exigencies at the district levels to ensure safety of passengers during road travels and to ensure that the number of road accidents causing death or injuries, are lessened.

The department has operationalised the latest version of software for issuance of registration number of newly purchased vehicles.

As a result, owners of vehicles are now able to get registration number of their vehicles in two-three days vis-à-vis a month by the older version of software.

“Pendency of registration has come down to 15000 as compared to 2.50 lakh in the month of January this year vis-à-vis in the same corresponding month of last year,” Agrawal added.

First Published: Jan 06, 2019 15:04 IST