Hazardous goods on the road: the documents a tanker must carry

A tanker carrying diesel, LPG, bitumen or chemicals is still a goods vehicle, so it needs everything an ordinary truck carries. On top of that, the law adds documents for the cargo and the driver, and the oil company or chemical manufacturer that hires the tanker adds its own audits. Missing one can mean a challan, a suspended vehicle on the principal's contract, or worse.

The ordinary truck documents

• Registration certificate, with the tanker body correctly recorded.
• Fitness certificate, every two years until eight years of age and every year after (CMVR rule 62).
• Permit: national permit with a valid annual authorisation, or the state permits for the route.
• Insurance, at least third-party under Section 146. Tanker fleets usually carry wider cover.
• PUC certificate, commonly 12 months for BS-IV and BS-VI vehicles (CMVR rule 115).
• Road tax paid up in the home state.
• Speed governor certificate, under CMVR rule 118 for transport vehicles.

Our truck documents guide covers each of these in detail.

The hazardous-goods set

Carriage of dangerous or hazardous goods is governed by rules 129 to 137 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, and driver qualification by rule 9. Together they add:

• Hazardous-goods endorsement on the driver's licence. The driver must be trained and endorsed to drive a vehicle carrying hazardous goods. The endorsement is valid for one year, separately from the licence itself, which for a transport vehicle is valid for five years.
• TREM card. The Transport Emergency card describes the substance, its hazards, and what to do in a spill, fire or accident. It must be in the cab and match the cargo actually carried.
• Labels and placards on the tanker showing the hazard class and the substance, as the rules require.
• Information from the consignor about the goods, provided to the transporter and the driver.

The tank itself may need licences from the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO), depending on what it carries. These are separate from motor vehicle documents and have their own validity.

The penalty

Violating the rules on carrying hazardous goods is an offence under Section 190(3) of the Motor Vehicles Act: up to ₹10,000. States can set different compounding amounts. A tanker running without the right endorsement or TREM card is also the kind of finding that gets a vehicle suspended from an oil company's contract, which costs far more than the fine. See hazardous goods violation.

Rule 9 also sets the driver's side of it: a driver of a hazardous-goods vehicle must have passed the prescribed training, and the endorsement records that he has. Training records are among the first things a principal's auditor asks for, so keep the certificate with the driver's file, not only with the training provider.

The dates that lapse most often

• The driver's hazardous-goods endorsement. It renews every year, while the licence renews every five. A register with one "licence" column misses it. Training has to be done before the endorsement is renewed.
• The TREM card for a changed cargo. A tanker that switches products needs a TREM card for the new one.
• Fitness on older tankers. Many tankers run past eight years, when fitness becomes annual.
• PESO licences for the tank, which sit outside the RTO's records entirely.

Principal audits

Oil marketing companies and chemical manufacturers audit the tankers on their contracts. A typical audit checks every document above, plus driver training records, vehicle safety equipment and trip records. A tanker that fails can be suspended from loading until the gap is closed. The fleets that pass audits easily are the ones that can produce every document, for every tanker and every driver, the moment the auditor asks.

A routine for tanker fleets

1. Keep a separate column for the hazardous-goods endorsement for every driver, read from SARATHI.
2. Book endorsement training well before the endorsement expires.
3. Keep a TREM card for every product each tanker carries, and check the right one is in the cab.
4. Track PESO licence dates for each tank alongside the RTO documents.
5. Before each audit, produce a report of every document and date for every tanker and driver.

Where PRACHSO fits

PRACHSO's Enterprise plan adds the hazardous-goods document set: the driver's endorsement read from SARATHI as its own date, TREM cards per product, and tank licences tracked alongside the RTO documents. Principal and contract audit reports show every document for every tanker on one page. See the tanker and hazardous fleets page.