Govt issues draft notification to further streamline, strengthen tourist permit regime

With an aim to further streamline and strengthen the tourist permit regime, the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) has issued a draft notification to supersede the All India Tourist Vehicle (Authorisation or Permit) Rules, 2021.

According to an official statement, the rules notified in 2021 provided a significant boost to the tourism sector in India by streamlining and simplifying the permit regime for tourist vehicles.

”MoRTH has issued a draft notification on 11 November 2022 to supersede the All India Tourist Vehicle (Authorisation or Permit) Rules, 2021.

”… now, with the proposed All India Tourist Vehicles (Permit) Rules, 2022, the tourist permit regime is proposed to be further streamlined and strengthened,” it said.

The proposed rules aim to simplify the procedure for All India Permit applicants and to reduce compliance burden, the provision of authorization and All India Tourist Permit has been made independent of each other.

”More categories of tourist vehicles, with lesser permit fees for lesser capacity vehicles (less than ten) have been proposed,” the statement said, adding that the move is expected to provide considerable financial relief to smaller tourist operators having smaller vehicles with lower seating capacity as they will now be required to pay lower fees commensurate with the seating capacity of their vehicle.

According to the statement, to promote deployment of electric vehicles in large numbers, a streamlined regulatory ecosystem at no cost to the operator(s) has been proposed.

Comments and suggestions have been invited from all stakeholders within a period of thirty days.