Pay if you break it, packers told

From now on, if any goods/documents get lost or damaged in transit, the packing firm is liable to pay 12 times the freight charge as penalty to the customer. Moushumi Das Gupta reports.

Packers broke your best dinner plates while moving home and all you got was an apologetic smile? Well, not anymore. From now on, if any goods/documents get lost or damaged in transit, the packing firm is liable to pay 12 times the freight charge as penalty to the customer.

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That’s not all. The licence of the transport agency/courier firm will be suspended for a week. The Road Transport Ministry, on March 1, notified the Carriage by Road Rules 2011, which will make goods transport agents and courier firms across the country accountable for any loss or damage to goods/documents in transit.

Under the new rules, it will be mandatory for all such firms to register themselves with the respective state transport departments. “The Centre will now have an exact headcount of such operators,” said SP Singh, Indian Foundation of Transport Research & Training, who was a member of the working group that framed the rules.

Singh, however, feels that the rules could have been made more stringent. “The group was pushing for a hefty penalty and permanent cancellation of licence after the third violation but the ministry did not accept it,” he said. The Carriage by Road Act has been repealed for the first time after it came into existence in 1865.