Despite the fact that there were around 10,542 road accidents which killed about 4,303 people and injured 11,825 persons in Odisha, the State Government is yet to ensure installation of speed limiting devices in vehicles even as many other States have complied with the Supreme Court guidelines much earlier.
Union Road Transport and Highways (RTH) Ministry’s National Road Safety Council Member Dr Kamaljit Soi at a news conference here on Monday blasted the State Transport Authority (STA) for its laxities and undue favouritism to the substandard and fly-by-night companies allowing them to instal speed governors in the State in an incorrect manner.
Soi said that after his earlier Press conference this year on road safety precautionary measures as mandated by the Supreme Court and Union RTH Ministry, Odisha sworn through a counter affidavit in the SC on March 31 that a vendor for supply and installation of speed governors in the State would be selected by inviting tender.
Subsequently, he was called by the STA on May 25, 2016 and all the important procedures were represented to the officials in accordance with various guidelines and notifications issued by the Ministry.
“The STA understood that the major consequences of an open market scenario are, products not duly approved by Government Authorised Technical Agencies, loss of sales tax and service tax to the State, recycling/reuse of speed governors, no provisioning of management information system (MIS) and incomplete speed governor kits will be supplied,” said Soi.
However, the Union Road Transport and Highways Ministry issued guidelines on June 16, 2016 which are necessary to be followed by the State Governments to ensure effective implementation of the speed governor regime, Soi informed.
The guidelines are that the States would take steps to ensure implementation of Speed limiting Device (SlD) in vehicles and they may incorporate any additional condition to ensure effective implementation of SlD fitment including submission of periodic reports process, audit, etc., he added.
“It will be the responsibility of the manufacturer to comply with the requirements of the AIS 018 along with the guidelines prescribed in the letter dated 16th June, 2016. The State Government would have to ensure the effective implementation of the notification for fitment of the speed limiting device”.
Soi said the Transport Department should understand that MoRTH issued another confirmatory guideline on August 2, 2016 in continuation of the procedures and guidelines issued by it on June 16, 2016 where it said: “It will be the responsibility of the manufacturer to comply with the requirements of the AIS 018 along with the guidelines prescribed in the June 16, 2016 letter. The State Government would have to ensure the effective implementation of the notification for fitment of the speed limiting device”.
It was sought that the speed governor regime being one of the most important tool towards road safety, the State Government will incorporate the proposed criteria and thus complete the vendor shortlisting process in a legitimate way as like the Himachal Pradesh, Goa, West Bengal, Karnataka and Haryana have done towards respecting the two guidelines of the Ministry.
“But to my utter surprise the said short-listing process was abruptly terminated vide the Government order dated 18th July, 2016 after keeping the whole process in the lurch for about two months,” said Soi.
“Such appropriately shortlisted companies will pay the commensurate sale tax and service tax to the State as there will be record of the installations due to availability of MIS system and control over re-cycling of speed governors,” assured Soi.
“Hence, I very strongly recommend that Odisha should consider Karnataka, Haryana, HP, West Bengal and Goa as role models for the excellent implementation of speed governor,” he added.