Graded point system soon, serial offenders may lose driving licence

• ET Bureau

• Published On Feb 27, 2026 at 11:42 AM IST

The initiative aims to curb rising road accidents, which have reached nearly 500,000 annually with over 180,000 deaths.

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The ministry of road transport and highways will soon come up with a graded point system for driving licences to track offences, deduct points and temporarily suspend or permanently cancel the licence after the prescribed limit on the number of offences has been breached.The move is one of the many initiatives being undertaken by the ministry across road engineering, automobile engineering and behavioural changes to curb road accidents, which have touched 500,000 a year with annual fatalities at over 180,000, road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadakari said.”Under the graded point system for driving licences, we will cut points on every offence and after a particular limit is reached, the licence will either get suspended for six months or even cancelled permanently, if the offences continue,” Gadkari said on Thursday while speaking at the third National Conclave on Road Safety, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).Gadkari also said his ministry has identified 100 top districts with high rate of road accidents and their black spots, and will work with a targeted approach to reduce accidents and eventually make them zero fatality districts. Going forward, the ministry plans to even name and shame the states and districts that continue to register a higher number of road accidents and fatalities.”Likewise we have also identified 350 land-sliding spots in the Himalayan terrain and the ministry has picked up 235 such spots in the first place to fix the problem on priority basis to avoid road accidents and deaths due to landslides,” Gadkari said.

According to the minister, 50 per cent of road fatalities can be avoided if the victim reaches the hospital within the ‘golden hour’.

“The ministry has decided to deploy up to 400 high-tech and fully equipped ambulances with sufficient rescue tools at key national highways under the supervision of state governments to ensure that these reach the accident spot within 20 minutes to rescue the victims and transport them to the hospital,” he said.