1. Short title, extent and commencement.—(1) This Act may be called the Multimodal
Transportation of Goods Act, 1993.
(2) It extends to the whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir*.
(3) It shall be deemed to have come into force on the 16th day of October, 1992.
2. Definitions.—In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,—
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[(a) “carrier” means a person who performs or undertakes to perform for hire, the carriage or
part thereof, of goods by road, rail, inland waterways, sea or air;]
(b) “competent authority” means any person or authority authorised by the Central
Government, by notification in the Official Gazette, to perform the functions of the competent
authority under this Act;
(c) “consignee” means the person named as consignee in the multimodal transport contract;
(d) “consignment” means the goods entrusted to a multimodal transport operator for
multimodal transportation;
(e) “consignor” means the person, named in the multimodal transport contract as consignor, by
whom or on whose behalf the goods covered by such contract are entrusted to a multimodal
transport operator for multimodal transportation;
(f) “delivery” means,—
(i) in the case of a negotiable multimodal transport document, delivering of the
consignment to, or placing the consignment at the disposal of, the consignee or any other
person entitled to receive it;
(ii) in the case of a non-negotiable multimodal transport document, delivering of the
consignment to, or placing the consignment at the disposal of, the consignee or any person
authorised by the consignee to accept delivery of the consignment on his behalf;
(g) “endorsee” means the person in whose favour an endorsement is made, and in the case of
successive endorsements, the person in whose favour the last endorsement is made;
(h) “endorsement” means the signing by the consignee or the endorsee after adding a direction
on a negotiable multimodal transport document to pass the property in the goods mentioned in such
document to a specified person;
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[(i) “goods” means any property including live animals, containers, pallets or such other
articles of transport or packaging supplied by the consignor, irrespective of whether such property
is to be or is carried on or under the deck;]
(j) “mode of transport” means carriage of goods by 3
[road, air, rail] inland waterways or sea;
1. Subs. by Act 44 of 2000, s.2, for clause (a) (w.e.f 5-12-2000).
2. Subs. by s.2, ibid., for clause (i) (w.e.f 5-12-2000).
3. Subs. by s. 2, ibid., for “road, rail” (w.e.f. 5-12-2000).
*. Vide notification No. S.O. 3912(E), dated 30th October, 2019, this Act is made applicable to the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the Union territory of
Ladakh.
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[(k) “multimodal transportation” means carriage of goods, by at least two different modes of
transport under a multimodal transport contract, from the place of acceptance of the goods in India
to a place of delivery of the goods outside India;
(l) “multimodal transport contract” means a contract under which a multimodal transport
operator undertakes to perform or procure the performance of multimodal transportation against
payment of freight;
(la) “multimodal transport document” means a negotiable or non-negotiable document
evidencing a multimodal transport contract and which can be replaced by electronic data
interchange messages permitted by applicable law;]
(m) “multimodal transport operator” means any person who—
(i) concludes a multimodal transport contract on his own behalf or through another
person acting on his behalf;
(ii) acts as principal, and 2
[not as an agent either of the consignor, or consignee or of the
carrier] participating in the multimodal transportation, and who assumes responsibility for the
performance of the said contract; and
(iii) is registered under sub-section (3) of section 4;
(n) “negotiable multimodal transport document” means a multimodal transport document which
is—
(i) made out to order or to bearer; or
(ii) made out to order and is transferable by endorsement; or
(iii) made out to bearer and is transferable without endorsement;
(o) “non-negotiable multimodal transport document” means a multimodal transport document
which indicates only one named consignee;
(p) “prescribed” means prescribed by rules made under this Act;
(q) “registration” means registration of multimodal transport operator under sub-section (3) of
section 4;
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[(r) “special drawing rights” means such units of accounts as are determined by the
International Monetary Fund;
(s) “taking charge” means that the goods have been handed over to and accepted for carriage by
the multimodal transport operator.]