The Government of India is set to make it mandatory for public transport vehicles to be equipped with CCTV cameras and emergency buttons, a move to ensure the safety of passengers, especially women.

Under the Motor Vehicles Act, the road transport and highways ministry has issued draft rules and sought comments from vehicle manufacturers and other stakeholders.

Transport vehicles with a seating capacity of over 23 will have to install cameras, emergency buttons and GPS while vehicles with less than 23 seats will need to be equipped with a vehicle tracking device and emergency button, according to Times of India.

"The tracking device, alert button and CCTV surveillance system devices shall be fitted by the manufacturer or the dealer or the respective operators, as the case may be."

The draft reads: "The tracking device, alert button and CCTV surveillance system devices shall be fitted by the manufacturer or the dealer or the respective operators, as the case may be."

In 2014, the government had approved this project under the Nirbhaya fund in public transport vehicles in 32 cities. However, the project did not take off.

The aim of this project was to track the movements of public transport vehicles, and alert violations via vtext signals and emergency panic buttons, which will be connected to local police station.

In case a panic button is triggered, the cameras within the vehicles will begin displaying live footage of the bus at the central police control room. If the vehicle moves away from its mapped route, the system will send triggers to the control centre.