- In this Act, unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context.(1)"animal" means any elephant, camel, horse ass, mule, cattle or goat;(2)"betterment" when applied to land means the increase in the value of any land arising from the execution in its vicinity of a highway development scheme at public expense ;(3)"betterment tax" means a tax levied on owners of land on the basis of percentage of the betterment value of the land ;(4)"building line" means a line on either side of any highway or part of a highway, as determined by the highway authority under Section 12 of this Act;(5)"competent authority" means the State Government or a local authority or any officer of the State Government or local authority competent to sanction the construction of or repair to, a highway ;(6)"control line" means a line on either side of a highway or part of a highway beyond the building line, as determined by the highway authority under Section 12 of this Act;(7)"driver" means in the case of a vehicle the person in charge or control of the vehicle for the time being, and in the case of an animal, any person driving, loading riding, or otherwise managing or controlling the animal and the words drive, driving, driven shall be construed accordingly ;(8)"encroachment" means occupation of any highway or part thereof, and incudes;(a)the erection of a building or any other structure, balconies, porches, chajjas or projections on over or overhanging the highway land ;(b)occupation of highway land beyond the prescribed period, if any, for stacking building materials or goods of any other description for exhibiting articles for sale, for erecting poles, awnings tents, pandals and other similar erection or for parking vehicles or stabling domestic animals or for any other purposes, and(c)excavations or embankment of any sort made or extended on any highway land ;(9)"highway" means any public thoroughfar, whether a road, street, lane, bridlepath or a foot-track, whether surfaced of unsurfaced, whether on land owned by the State Government or a local authority or on land belonging to a private person over which the public have or have acquired, a right of way by usage, and includes :(a)the slope, berm, borrow-pits, foot-paths, pavements and side drains of any such thoroughfare ;(b)all bridges culverts, causeway, carriageways or other road structures, built on or across such thoroughfares; and(c)the trees, fences, posts and other highway accessories and materials and materials stacks on the thoroughfare or on land attached to the thoroughfare but does not does not include the national highway's as defined under the National Highways Act, 1956;(10)"highway authority" means :(a)for highways maintained by the State Government, the Department of the State Government responsible for their maintenance or any other authority specially appointed by the State Government in this behalf;(b)for highways maintained by a local authority, the local authority or such other authority as may be appointed by the State Government in this behalf; and(c)form highways not include in clauses (a) and (b), the authority appointed as the "highway authority" under Section 3 or, if no such appointment has been made, the State Government itself;(11)"highway boundaries" means the boundaries of the highway whether visibly demarcated or not, within which contained the areas of land constituting the highway or land reserved or acquired for widening the highway;(12)"Limited access highway" means a highway access to which is permitted only at points specifically provided or agreed to for the purpose of by the highway authority ;(13)"middle of a highway" means, in relation to any highway from the improvement of which plans have been prepared by the highway authority, the middle of the highway as proposed to be improved in accordance with the plans, and where no such plans have been prepared, the point half-way between the boundaries of the highway;(14)"motor vehicle" means a motor, vehicle as defined in the Motor Vehicle Act. 1939;(15)"permit" means the document issued by an authority competent to issue it authorising the use of vehicle as a public vehicle ;(16)"prescribed" means prescribed in this Act, or by rules made under this Act;(17)"Public place" means a road, street, way or other place, whether a thoroughfare or not, to which the public have a right of access, and includes any place or stand at which passengers are picked up or set down by a public vehicle ;(18)"public vehicle" mean any vehicle use or constructed or adopted to be use for the carriage of passenger or goods for hire or reward ;(19)"standard width of highway" means the width of a highway between its boundaries as prescribed by the highway authority under Section 11 ;(20)"survey" includes all operations incidental to the determination, measurement and record of a boundary or boundaries or any part of a boundary and includes resurvey ;(21)"survey mark" mean any mark or object erected made, employed or specified by a survey officer to indicate or determine or assist in determining the position or level of any point or points ;(22)"survey officer" means any person appointed to be a survey officer under this Act;(23)"vehicle" includes any wheeled conveyance drawn propelled or driven by any kind of power including human, animals, motor, steam or electric power, and includes any barrow, sledge plough, drag or like vehicle.
