Govt. Working on Comprehensive Law for Transporting Hazardous Goods

The government intends to bring a new comprehensive legislation for movement of hazardous goods, according to a report in the Hindu Business Line newspaper.

At present, there are a number of regulations from different ministries making things difficult for effective implementation of the law. Accordingly, it has been planned to bring a single, but comprehensive regulation, for taking hazardous goods from one place to other. “The proposed legislation will prescribe how to make the transportation of hazardous goods different from those of common goods. These will include signage, cover etc.,” a senior government official was quoted as saying in the report.

Hazardous goods can be divided into two categories: hazardous materials and hazardous waste. Any material or waste confirming to certain threshold in one or more criteria such as degree of toxicity (extremely or highly), flammable (flash point of 20°C), explosive (under the effect of flame, heat or photo-chemical conditions), acidity (with pH ≤ 5), alkalinity (pH ≥ 9) and carcinogenicity (causing cancer) is classified as hazardous. Material or waste containing or contaminated with certain hazardous constituents are also called hazardous materials or waste.

The government official quoted in the report said that efforts are also on to have a single legislation for goods carried by sea, land or air.