The government has done well to do away with red beacons atop all VIP vehicles from May 1. .Sub rules 1 and 3 of Rule 108 of the Motor Vehicles Act (MVA) 1989 enabled the Centre and the States to specify the categories of dignitaries who could install red lights atop their vehicles. Since the rule itself is being thrown out of the Act, good riddance at last. Though there were attempts on the part of past governments to “regulate” the “laal batti” culture, nobody had dared to take a sweeping decision like the present government has done to totally abolish the red beacons from all cars including those of the President and the Prime Minister.
The “laal batti” usage was so deeply enshrined in the minds of many of our dignitaries that it was nigh on impossible to even imagine them moving around without a vehicle sporting a beacon. Few States like Delhi and Punjab had indicated they were ready to root out the red beacon culture because it was heavily borrowed from the British legacy. West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee has already shunned the status symbol. The UP government had vowed to eliminate the “hooters” and “sirens” that accompany the “laal batti”.
The Supreme Court (SC) in 2013 had lashed out at the then government on its inability to restrict the use of “laal batti”. The problem appeared to stem from the lack of consensus on the issue because no VIP would like to willingly shun the privileges which accompany the posts they hold. The “laal batti” had come to associate itself with “VVIP dominance”, and was largely instrumental in creating a huge public inconvenience. The law enforcers on duty were forced to obey their masters by creating road blocks of sorts by putting up barricades whenever a “laal batti” car passed by.
Though the SC had asked the government to permit only “top” Constitutional authorities to use “laal battis”, the decision never came because there seemed to be a thin line between “top to bottom” hierarchy in India what with every elected representative, be it a Corporator or an MLA or an MP, considering himself/herself a “VVIP”. More damaging was the tendency of several lightweights to “fix” red lights over their cars. It is up to the government to ensure nobody flouts the new rule.
