Notwithstanding the notification issued by the ministry of road transport and highways (MORTH) for making speed governors in commercial vehicles mandatory in 29 states from Thursday, only four states have taken steps to work on the same. 

These states include Karnataka, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Due to the increasing number of accidents and fatalities as a result of over speeding, the ministry had directed all the states to notify and implement the system from 1 October 2015, but nothing concrete took place. The ministry had issued a notification on 15 April this year through an amendment in the Central Motor Vehicle Rule (CMVR) which made fitment of speed governors mandatory on all transport vehicles manufactured on or before 1 October 2015, by the manufacturers, either in the manufacturing stage or at the dealer stage with pre speed of 80 kmph except for dumpers and tankers and school buses, which is at 60 kmph.

In case of old vehicles, speed governors had to be fitted by the operators of those vehicles on or before 1 April 2016 confirming to standards. 

"For the implementation of installation of electronic speed governors, either government should go for tender system or fix up a set of manufacturers who should be authorised to make these devices as this will stop people from tampering or using non-approved speed governors which are of no use," said Rajesh Ravi, General Secretary, Suraksha Foundation NGO who have been working to implement the law.

Ravi further said that even if some states implement the law, most of the times issues like fake fitment certificates are obtained from RTO, governors are removed or tampered, recycled speed governors are fitted, speed governor models are found to be different from the type approved model and lack of after sales warranty have been found. 

"Like in Delhi, cluster and DTC buses are equipped with speed governors but when several accidents took place due to over speeding, it was later found that a large number of speed governors are tampered with," said an official of the transport department.

The law is not new as the emphasis on installation of speed governors started in 1997 where the Supreme Court directed the states to issue orders for the same; however, after 18 years, nothing much has changed. 

According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data, a total of 4,51,757 accidental deaths were reported in the country during 2014 showing an increase of 12.8 per cent as compared to 2013.

Correspondingly,11.3 per cent rise in the rate of ‘accidental deaths’ were reported during the year as compared to 2013. 

"The incidence of accidental deaths has shown an increasing trend during the period 2004 -2014 with an increase of 62.9 percent in the year 2014 as compared to 2004. The population growth during the period 2004-2014 was 14.6 per cent whereas the increase in the rate of accidental deaths during the same period was 42.4 per cent," revealed the data.