At the Road Safety Stakeholders’ Meet hosted at New Delhi, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways and MSMEs Nitin Gadkari and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh appealed to all stakeholders and especially the youth to help reduce the number of road accidents and fatalities and also announced several measures that will usher in better road and traffic management
Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways and MSMEs Nitin Gadkari has iterated his Ministry’s commitment for making roads safer for all road users. He said it will continue with the efforts to reduce road accident fatalities through engaging larger communities and stakeholders in various awareness activities on road safety to encourage everyone to join hands in making roads safer.
Addressing the Road Safety Stakeholders’ Meet in New Delhi, the Minister called upon the large number of students present for the function to become “brand ambassadors of road safety” to bring about a behavioural and transformative change in the youths of the country.
He said that the youth community is the most affected in road accidents. “The IRAD project launched by the Ministry will not only enhance the analytical capabilities based on international best practices, but will also help to perform analysis based on collected data for further improvement and corrective measures to be taken at accident spots or accident-prone areas by the concerned road authority. Around 30,000 tablets shall be provided to police departments of various States and UTs for capturing accidents’ related data,” he said.
Speaking on this occasion, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh expressed concern at the increasing number of road accident deaths in the country, saying that the number is far more than casualties due to natural disasters and terror incidents. He added that it was very painful to note that nearly 1.5 lakh people lost their lives in road accidents in India in the year 2018, and a lot more got injured. “Most of the deaths took place due to over-speeding, which has been identified as one of the leading causes behind road accidents, resulting in around 97,500 deaths. The trauma of accident not only has financial impact but also impacts victims and their families emotionally and psychologically,” he said.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has taken earnest steps for reducing the number of road accidents that include rectification of accident black spots, improved road engineering, training of drivers and awareness generation.
Secretary, Road Transport and Highways, Dr. Sanjeev Ranjan said that the Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Act 2019 is the most important step towards implementation of multi-pronged strategies across various pillars of road safety. The act proposes strict penalties for traffic violations. It also has provision for cashless treatment of accident victims during the golden hour.
He further said that the Government is also focusing on strengthening e-governance by creating provision for online driving licenses and online registration of vehicles. Now the Central Government can make rules for electronic monitoring and enforcement and State Governments can ensure the same on national highways, state highways and in urban regions to ensure road safety through the use of the latest technology. In order to increase the effectiveness, the earlier District Road Safety Committee has been reconstituted as Member of Parliaments’ Road Safety Committee to enforce measures and promote awareness among road users.
Based on the Road Accident Report 2018 published by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Tamil Nadu – which has registered maximum reduction in accident-related deaths of 3,941 in 2018 with respect to 2017, registering a decline of 24.4% over the previous year – has been adjudged the best performing state in terms of road safety. Recognising the commendable work done by the State, the Ministers presented the award to a team from Tamil Nadu led by Minister for Transport M R Vijayabhaskar.
On this occasion, MoU documents were exchanged with IIT-BHU on promoting road safety and research in the field of highway sectors. Ten MoUs were also exchanged with IRC and training organisations like IAHE, CRRI, IITs, NITs, NATPAC, etc., for imparting 15 days’ training course on road safety and safety audit to highway professionals and engineers.