SHILLONG, NOVEMBER 26: The Meghalaya state government today announced stricter rules for official vehicles, aiming to curb misuse of sirens, beacons, and tinted glasses.
“The cabinet has approved the proposal for adopting the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in matters of using beacons, flashers, sirens, and tinted glasses in official vehicles. In a nutshell, what that means is who can use the siren and who cannot use the siren, and also who can have tinted glasses and who can have flashers. All of those aspects were discussed and there is a strong feeling among the cabinet that there needs to be a mechanism that would control and limit the use of such kinds of sirens in the entire process,” Conrad K Sangma told reporters after chairing the first-ever cabinet meeting at the Iconic Ward’s Lake here.
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He then said official vehicles of Z+ category will be allowed to use tinted glasses, and sirens can be used only by vehicles of police, emergency services, and pilot escort vehicles of VVIPs and VIPs.
“Regarding the lights and beacons, we have made it very clear that the red lights and beacons will not be allowed by anybody as that is the national law. Flashers that are being used as substitutes will only be allowed by specific notification of the Transport department. Only those notified by the Transport department can use the flashers, but that again can be done only once the Transport department notifies,” he said, adding that his office will also write to the Transport department for necessary permission.
Sangma then said a committee headed by the principal secretary is in place. “If there are any categories that need to be included, this committee headed by the principal secretary will be authorized to notify if any individual or category should be included.” On the use of name plates, Sangma said the Transport department will notify the list of persons who are entitled to use them.
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“We are very particular because people have a lot of practice of putting up name plates in a very random manner. This is something we feel needs to be monitored and controlled, and therefore, we will have a system to monitor that. The Transport department will approve who can put them, and you cannot just randomly put up name plates or flashers as you wish. You have to take permission for that,” he said, adding that the use of the national flag will be as per the Flag Code of India 2002 and SOPs.