Faced with an alarming rate of death toll in road accidents, the Government plans to reduce casualties by half in five years through a number of measures like providing air-conditioned cabins in trucks to drivers as they are stressed due to heat and creating access-controlled expressways.
Announcing these measures in the Rajya Sabha on Monday after members expressed concern over the rising toll, Minister of Transport Nitin Gadkari said the Government intends to reduce the rate of casualties to half in the next five years. Nearly 1,39,671 people were killed in road accidents in 2014, he said. Many of these casualties were due to deficiencies in design, the Minister added.
“We will bring down the number of deaths in road accidents by 50 percent,” Gadkari said while fielding questions adding his Ministry has identified 726 ‘blackspots’ which would be set right at a cost of Rs 11,000 crore.
Work for expanding two-lane highways to four-lane will also be taken up and the length of National Highways will be increased from 96,000 kms to two lakh kms, the Minister said adding ambulances were placed on highways to provide medical treatment of victims.
As regards providing air-conditioned cabins for truck drivers, Gadkari it will be made mandatory as “they drive up to 12 hours at a stretch at times.” Stressing the need for this step, he said sweltering heat in the cabin of truck leads to stress which at times lead to accidents.