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Lal Batti banned from May 1
From next month, lal batti or red beacons will be banned for everybody, including the President, Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India. \"There will be no exceptions,\" said Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday, announcing after a Cabinet meeting that only emergency vehicles like fire engines, ambulances and police vans can have beacons.Â
There will be no red beacons for President, PM, CJI, CMs, ministers and officials
​New Delhi: From next month, lal batti or red beacons will be banned for everybody, including the President, Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India. "There will be no exceptions," said Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday, announcing after a Cabinet meeting that only emergency vehicles like fire engines, ambulances and police vans can have beacons.
"Blue lights, used often for the car preceding VIPs, will be allowed only for emergency vehicles," said Jaitley, explaining what the government calls a move to end "VIP culture". The beacons will go but restrictions will continue when the most protected leaders of the country are on the move, especially the President or the PM.
In recent meetings, the Prime Minister had reportedly been emphatic about ending 'lal batti culture' - a term that has come to represent massive public inconvenience to make way for "VIPs" riding in cars with flashing red lights and hooters.
Modi demonstrated his disapproval just last week, when his convoy moved "in normal traffic" - without any route restrictions or road blocks - to the Delhi airport to receive Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Usually, policemen put up barricades and sanitise the route of a dignitary, leaving people waiting interminably for the roads to reopen to traffic.
The video of an ambulance carrying a wounded child being blocked by policemen because of a visiting leader's convoy in Delhi earlier this month went viral online and drew angry reactions. Two Chief Ministers have already renounced beacons - Devendra Fadnavis in Maharashtra and Amarinder Singh in Punjab.
