West Bengal: Transport department issues beacon notification

KOLKATA: The state transport department on Friday issued a fresh notification on the use of multi-colour beacons on vehicles after their rampant misuse was reported. This has prompted the cops to remove beacons from the vehicles where those were used illegally.
The multi-colour beacons are specifically used by police, fire brigade, disaster management group, defence forces for the maintenance of law and order, duties relating to control of fire and in controlling disasters like landslide, building collapse, flood, cyclone, tsunami or nuclear, chemical or biological catastrophes.
Apart from the officers and personnel, the departmental ministers are for the first time included in the list. The chief secretary and departmental secretaries, divisional commissioners and district-level officers were also included in the list.
The notification issued by the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) in 2017 specified the vehicles that can have multi-colour beacons. The notification also made it clear that the transport minister must issue stickers to the specific officers, on whose vehicles the beacon will be used on security printed water-mark paper with hologram.

Immediately after the release of the notification, a misconstrued idea was floated, erupting a controversy on how the governor, the assembly speaker and the leader of the opposition are left out from the list of dignitaries entitled beacons.
However, the transport minister Firhad Hakim said that this multi-colour beacon has nothing to do with beacons of dignitaries.
“The notification of the transport department is being misinterpreted. The said beacon is meant for only emergency services. However, we will be issuing a fresh list of dignitaries who can use beacons. After the Debanjan Deb (who used beacons on his car to dupe people) incident, we learnt a lesson,” said transport minister Firhad Hakim.
The notification also said that when not on such duty relating to controlling fire, law and order or a disaster, the vehicles cannot use such beacons.