The transport department on Monday evening issued a notification banning beacons on all VIP vehicles in Bihar.
The notification follows the Union government's recent ban - via the Central Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Rules, 2017 - on the use of beacons for everybody including the President, Prime Minister and Chief Justice of India.
"We issued the notification following the (Union) ministry of road transport and highways' notification on May 1," said Sujata Chaturvedi, principal secretary, transport. "With this, beacons are banned for everybody in Bihar, including those holding constitutional posts or working in senior administrative positions. Copies of the notification have been sent to all offices concerned in the state."
As decided by the Centre, only vehicles on emergency and disaster management duties are exempt from the ban and will be allowed to use multi-coloured (red, blue and white) flashers, while ambulances will be allowed to use purple beacons.
According to the Centre's directive, fire fighters, police, paramilitary forces or defence forces on law and order duty, and those on duty related to management of natural disasters can use the multi-coloured flashers.
Vehicles plying within airports, ports, mines and project sites can use amber beacons for operational purposes on the condition they don't leave the premises on to public roads.
Sujata said her department has written to the home and disaster management departments to submit a list of vehicles and personnel who would be used in emergency duties so that "each one could be provided with stickers bearing holograms as specified by the transport department".
The list will be made public and the vehicles will be allowed to use the multi-coloured flashers, along with the hologram stickers pasted on their windscreens. The list will be reviewed annually.
Monday evening's notification has led to a mad scramble among beacon users to remove the lights from their vehicles. Some ministers, however, expressed reservations about the beacon ban.
"The central government has taken in its hands the power to decide what would be emergency or disaster management duty," said RJD leader and transport minister Chandrika Rai. "This power should have remained with the states. Bihar, for example, is a state prone to multiple disasters, and it should have been given the power to decide who or which vehicles would use multi-coloured flashers."
If the central government was serious about ending the "VIP culture" in the country, Rai said, it should do so in totality. "Reserved lounges in airports, power structure in the government, executive class in airlines and other such trappings should be done away with," he said. "Why do we need to reserve seats for authorities and officials in government functions like oath-taking ceremonies?"
Education minister and Congress leader Ashok Choudhary called the beacon ban a "publicity stunt of the central government".
"How does merely removing beacons change VIP culture," he asked, pointing out that traffic hassles happen when the motorcade of a VIP moves.
He also added that it was Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh who first initiated the move to remove red beacons. It was followed by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Choudhary said.
