Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 4: While the nation bids adieu to beacons, the Ministers in J&K had conceived novel mechanism to demonstrate their position and authority by installing sirens in their vehicles and red flags in their escort vehicles.
This was stated by NPP chairman and former minister Harsh Dev Singh in a press statement here today. Mr Singh further said that Union Govt had issued directions that beacons could be used only on vehicles providing emergency services like ambulances, fire engines and police conveyances to the exclusion of all other national and state dignitaries including the constitutional authorities. He said the purpose was to end the VIP culture with PM Modi stating that every person in India was important.
” Accordingly the Central Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Rules 2017 were notified and the new law enforced in the entire country from May 1, 2017. Despite the Central Motor Vehicles Act being applicable to the J&K state as well and the said rule having universal appeal, several J&K Ministers were still trying to sabotage the move. While some of the Ministers had resisted the removal of beacons, others had replaced them with sirens and red flags,” Singh said.
Flaying the attempts of the self promoting ministers to bulldoze the beacon ban, Harsh Dev called upon the law enforcement authorities to take serious note of such violations. He said that sirens had been banned by the Apex court of the country much earlier and anybody found using the same needed to be effectively dealt with under law besides proceedings for contempt of court as well. Apart from illegality and noise pollution, the sirens were an accident hazard, he maintained.
Calling for an end to such feudalistic privileges, Harsh Dev urged upon the PM to issue further guidelines for shortening the convoys of Ministers. He said the Ministers needed to understand that real power flowed not from beacons, sirens and convoys of vehicles but from public perception which test they had failed miserably. He further urged upon Modi to order the removal of two flags from the vehicles of J&K BJP Ministers, a promise and commitment which constituted the ideological DNA of the BJP while in opposition.
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