The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has tightened emergency response regulations on national highways, imposing financial penalties for delays and establishing strict ambulance schedules.
The new guidelines make the NHAI Care/Incident Management System mandatory for all on-road emergency units deployed across NHAI projects.
With the new rules in place, emergency tickets have to be accepted within one minute, and if this is not done, a fine of Rs 5,000 will be imposed for each additional minute or part of a minute.
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After acceptance, the ambulance must begin moving within two minutes as well, and any delay past that time will likewise result in a charge of Rs 5,000 for every extra minute.
For accidents within 10 km, ambulances are required to reach the crash site within 10 minutes of ticket acceptance, with response time extended proportionately for accidents further away.
A penalty of Rs 10,000 will be imposed for each instance of missing this deadline, In addition, victims must get to the closest hospital within an hour of the ticket being accepted, failing which they would be penalised an additional Rs 10,000. The tickets cannot be refused either; doing so would result in a punishment of Rs 10,000 in each case.
NHAI acknowledged that poor adoption of its Care Dashboard and mobile app, along with weak GPS uptime and units staying offline, has been slowing accident response, flagging possible contractor negligence as a risk to victims.
To fix this, all ambulances, cranes and patrol vehicles now carry AIS-140-compliant GPS, Android devices with IoT SIMs and the NHAI Care app, while Incident Managers track responses in real time via tablets.
A 24x7 central call centre with eight helpline staff per shift and doctor-led triaging has also been set up, with the system mandated to maintain over 99% daily uptime.
Other penalties include Rs 2,500 a day for non-use of the app or GPS non-compliance, and Rs 10,000 per inspection for equipment or staffing deficiencies.
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Ambulances must also run a daily 5 km mock drill unless already deployed on a call. Penalties, capped at Rs 2.5 lakh a month, will be auto-deducted from service providers' payments.
The move follows concerns raised by the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety and a CAG audit, with NHAI directing officials to ensure strict compliance.
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