The Environmental Relief Fund, and the Relief Now Prescribed

In one line

Every insured owner pays a second premium into a national fund, and since 1 April 2024 the amounts that fund pays out are no longer in the Act at all.

In the wording a student can write in an examination: section 7A of the Public Liability Insurance Act 1991 empowers the Central Government to establish the Environmental Relief Fund, to which are credited the further amount payable by the owner under section 4(2C), the penalties imposed under the Act, the interest and other income from investments and any other prescribed amount; the Fund is utilised for paying relief under an award of the Collector in accordance with a scheme; sections 9 to 13 give the powers to call for information, to enter and inspect, to search and seize, to give directions and to apply to a court for a restraining order; sections 14 and 15 provide the penalties; and sections 15A and 15B, inserted by the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act 2023 with effect from 1 April 2024, provide for an adjudicating officer and an appeal to the National Green Tribunal.

The Schedule that is no longer there

This is the point on which a student can be most easily caught out, because every textbook still prints the old figures.

What the Schedule said. The Schedule to the Act, read with section 3(1), fixed the relief: reimbursement of medical expenses up to a maximum of twelve thousand five hundred rupees in each case; for a fatal accident, twenty five thousand rupees per person in addition to those medical expenses; for permanent total disability, twenty five thousand rupees with the medical expenses and cash relief on the percentage of disablement certified by an authorised physician; for loss of wages from temporary partial disability, a fixed monthly relief not exceeding one thousand rupees a month for a maximum of three months, provided the victim was hospitalised for more than three days and is above sixteen years of age; and up to six thousand rupees for damage to private property.

What happened to it. Clause (K) of entry 28 in the Schedule to the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act 2023 provides that the Schedule shall be omitted, with effect from 1 April 2024. The same entry substituted section 3(1) so that the owner is liable to provide relief as may be prescribed, and inserted clause (ea) in section 23(2) so that rules may prescribe the amount of relief.

Where the figures now live. The Public Liability Insurance (Amendment) Rules 2024, G.S.R. 772(E) of 17 December 2024, insert sub-rule (5) in rule 10 and a new Second Schedule to the Rules.