Overview
- The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways published a draft amendment to the Central Motor Vehicles Rules in the Gazette on Oct 21 and has invited objections for 30 days before any change becomes law.
- The draft would raise the pass mark for the online safe‑driving tutorial from 60% to 75%, extend the tutorial to at least 30 minutes and lengthen the window to complete it from seven days to 15 days.
- Licence cards would carry nationality and new personal fields such as blood group, mobile number and emergency contact, use QR‑code readable zones instead of the machine‑readable zone, and have separate colour formats for Indian and foreign nationals.
- The proposal narrows acceptable identity, age and address proofs by removing affidavits sworn before magistrates or notaries and life‑insurance policies, and it would retrieve data from the Sarathi portal while waiving fees for certain online updates authenticated with Aadhaar.
- Administrative changes set firm timelines and rules for day‑to‑day processes: authorities must decide licence‑change applications within 15 days, an unresolved address change is deemed approved after 30 days, surrendered vehicle classes are deleted within seven days, and permanently surrendered classes cannot be reissued for one year.