Punjab Transport Minister Razia Sultana on Wednesday directed the concerned officials to rectify all black spots in the state as black spot management is crucial for road safety to save the precious human lives from road accidents.
She emphasized that all concerned departments should make concerted efforts to achieve a 50 percent reduction in road fatalities and injuries on the line of the second ‘Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 by the UN’.
The Minister, addressing the concluding day event of the National Road Safety Month (January 18 to February 17) on Wednesday, asked the officials that a dedicated lane should be designated for heavy vehicles and to avert the road fatalities, tipper, trailers, and other heavy duty vehicles should not be parked on the road sides.
She also directed the Traffic Police to initiate a special drive for checking of driving licences of heavy vehicle drivers. “We should shun the behaviour of ‘celebrate and forget’ approach. The road safety campaign should not be confined to just a month. The awareness activities should be carried on with the same zeal beyond the month,” she added.
The state Traffic Advisor Navdeep Asija said that the exercise of identifying the new black spots in Punjab will be completed in the next six months. “Punjab has identified 391 accident black spots in 12 districts, and out of total 391 black spots, 264 black spots are on the national highways, 64 on the state highways or ODR (arterial roads) or MDR (major district roads), six are on link roads, 54 are on municipal roads, and three black spots are on other roads,” he said.
Asija said that for each of the police district, the list of first order, second order, third order, fourth order, and fifth order black spots are identified as part of scientific study “Accident Black Spot Identification and Rectification Program on Various Highways or Roads of Punjab”, out of which 100 black spots on national highways have been rectified and 32 on state roads are under improvement implementation.
Punjab is the first state in the north region to complete this exercise at this scale, he added.
Presenting the status report on the Road Safety Month-2021 in Punjab, the state Principal Secretary (Transport) K Siva Prasad said that a protocol has been set in coordination with civil and police and other related departments to end the menace of stray cattle related accidents.
“All concerned parties are working to make such accidents minimum through public participation,” he said while thanking the Punjab Police, all NGOs, other departments and DCs and the Education Department for making it a successful outreach programme.
NHAI Advisor Kahan Singh Pannu and NHAI Regional Officer RP Singh assured the Minister that all the black spots on national highways in the state will be rectified by the year end.
Additional Director General of Police Dr Sharad Satya Chauhan said that a total 5,194 road accident cases registered in the state during 2020, in which 3,866 people lost their lives and 2,934 got seriously injured. “There is an 18 percent reduction in road accidents and 15 percent reduction in terms of road accident fatalities from previous year, that is 2019,” he said.