New Inter-State Agreement Facilitates Seamless Transport in NCR

The Governments of Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh of NCR have signed a Combined Reciprocal Common Transport Agreements (CRCTA) covering both Contract Carriage & Stage Carriage since time period of earlier Agreements of Reciprocal Common Transport Agreement was coming to an end. On the initiative of Member Secretary, NCRPB, and with the consent of the NCR participating States, NCRPB simultaneously worked on having the revised Agreement.

One of the policy proposals of the Regional Plan-2021 for the National Capital Region is unrestricted movement of buses, taxis, and auto-rickshaws within NCR. Implementation of this policy is important to facilitate general public to commute between Delhi and the rest of NCR seamlessly.

Now, as the NCR States with the efforts of their respective Transport Commissioners and Secretaries, have completed necessary action required u/s (5) and (6) of the Motor Vehicle Act 1988 and notified the Combined RCTA. NCR Planning Board is happy to finally issue the Combined Reciprocal Common Transport Agreements (CRCTA) covering both Contract Carriage & Stage Carriage.

The agreement provides for countersigning of permits/licenses for motor cabs/Taxis/Auto Rickshaw registered in NCR for seamless movement single point taxation for mass public transport vehicles of State transport undertaking inter-city buses, to ease traffic congestion and reduce air pollution, Clean Emission Norms as per Government of India, provisions for aggregators and e-vehicles as per MoRTH/MoP guidelines, etc.

Key highlights of the CRCTA include:

1. All Motor cabs/Taxis/Auto Rickshaws; All Educational Institution vehicles; and All Stage Carriage Buses of State Transport Undertakings (including City bus services) of NCR participating states will be covered under this agreement.
2. All permits/licenses including temporary permits/licenses (Contract Carriage and also Stage Carriage, as applicable) shall be issued only on Vaahan Software, as updated from time to time.

• iii. The age of the Stage Carriage vehicles as well as Contract Carriage vehicles shall be limited to ten years for diesel vehicles and fifteen years for petrol/CNG vehicles till any further directions are issued in this regard. However, directions of Hon’ble Supreme Court, Hon’ble NGT and Govt. of India (MoRTH), as applicable, shall have overriding effects on these provisions.
• iv. All Public Service Vehicles (except those specifically exempted by MoRTH), shall be mandatorily fitted with Vehicle Location Tracking Device (VLTD) and one or more emergency buttons to comply with MoRTH notifications or as applicable from time to time.

The CRCTA shall come into force with immediate effect, for ensuring seamless movement of passenger vehicles in NCR shall be valid for next 10 years. The Combined RCTA for Stage and Contract Carriages for Passenger vehicles in NCR builds on the earlier separate RCTAs for these two categories and takes it further to facilitate ease of seamless passenger transport in NCR.

The new agreement provides for single-point taxation to state owned transport bodies wherein road tax/passenger tax etc. shall be payable by them only in one NCR State and exempted from such taxes/fee in other NCR States. This has been agreed by all the NCR States with a view to nudge passenger shift from private to public transport to contribute towards reduction in pollution in NCR.

The new Combined agreement also provides for exemption in such taxes to buses etc. of educational institutions. The NCR States have agreed to forego such revenues in larger public interest of cleaner NCR. Such revenue loss is estimated to be around Rs.100 crore annually. Hence this new Combined RCTA for Stage and Contract Carriages in NCR, heralds higher level of inter-state cooperation, under the leadership of NCR Planning Board.

NCR States shall take initiative to computerize the database of drivers, vehicle registration and other related information in the NCR districts on priority basis. States should also endeavor to implement the usage of RFID, Speed Control device, Fast Tag, Trauma Care, single window Tax collection, bar-coding of finger-prints of drivers and GPS vehicle tracking system in phased manner.