Haryana has witnessed 15,679 accidental deaths in the year 2014.
The high rate of accidental deaths were reported in Haryana at 58.5 per cent against the national average rate of 36.3 per cent, as per the latest report of “Accidental Deaths & Suicides in 2014” released by National Crime Records Bureau.
As per the report, the highest rate of accidental deaths was reported from Puducherry (96.3) followed by Chhattisgarh (84.6), Gujarat (59.2) and Haryana (58.5).
Haryana reported 15,679 accidental deaths in 2014 while it was 11,872 in 2013 recording a variation of comparatively high 32.1 percent. In 2014, 702 deaths occurred due to causes attributable to forces of nature, unnatural cases of deaths were 11048 and deaths due to other causes stood at 3929 in the state.
As per NCRB, the causes of deaths attributable to nature included earthquake, flood, landslide, lightning, forest fire, torrential rains, among others while un-natural causes included traffic accidents, accidental fire, stampede, factory/machine accidents. Other causes include poising, sudden deaths, drug overdose etc.
The road accidents account for a large number of deaths and injuries every year in Haryana.
As many as 6255 people lost their lives in traffic accidents while 9964 were injured during last year in the state. 4875 deaths were reported due to road accidents, 1261 due to railway accidents and 19 due to railway crossing accidents, according to the report.
In 2014, the State witnessed 12417 traffic accidents, an increase of 5.1 per cent from 11815 accidents witnessed in 2013. It included road accidents totaling 11043, railway crossing accidents 13 and railway accidents during last year 1361.
In Haryana’s capital city-Chandigarh, 119 people died in traffic accidents while 322 were reportedly injured in 2014.
According to the report, maximum fatalities at expressways was reported in Telangana (279 out of 1,802 deaths) contributing 15.5 percent of total such fatal road accidents at Expressways followed by Haryana at 13.4 percent.
494 cases of road accidents were reported at Haryana expressways resulting in 241 deaths and leaving 457 injured. On national highways, 3544 accidents were reported leading to 1766 deaths and injuring 3079 persons while on state highways, 1401 deaths and 2825 injured people were reported in 2931 cases of accidents, stated the report.
Notably, in a bid to curb the escalating number of accidents every year and provide safer environment on state roads, Haryana Government had announced ‘Haryana Road Safety Fund Scheme’.
Under this new scheme, the fund would be utilized to impart traffic education to all roads users including children by holding awareness campaigns, rallies, quiz, drawing competition and by publishing advertisement in newspapers, putting hoarding or boards and printing pamphlets and to install surveillance cameras and accessories across the state.
Apart from this, the fund would be used to provide aid to public in emergency or accident like towing the vehicle, arranging ambulance and any other activity to promote road safety and awareness among public.
Haryana Government has decided that about 50 percent of the compounding fee collected from various traffic violations in the previous year under the Motor Vehicles Act would be provided under the scheme for the next year.