In line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India initiative, the Centre is all set to use the internet as a medium to help victims of road accidents and save lives. Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday urged people to leverage the technology to make India accident-free.
Addressing a road safety forum, Gadkari said people can take pictures of the victims/accident site and post them either on road Ministry’s website or on popular medium likes Facebook, Whatsapp or Twitter following which the concerned department will take prompt action to provide relief and treatment.
The Railway Ministry is already pursuing the Digital India initiative through Twitter to help rail users and address the grievances of passengers.
“I do not want anyone else to suffer as I did after a road accident. It deeply pains and hurts me to see India top on global list with 5 lakh accidents every year,” Gadkari said while launching a Facebook page of the road safety forum to generate awareness.
A Road Safety Authority, he said, is also on the anvil and the Prime Minister has given his nod for it. “We are committed to minimising deaths due to road accidents by 50 per cent in five years and the Government has identified 726 black spots where at least 50,000 people have lost their lives. Come join the Government in drive to make the nation accident-free like Sweden,” he said.
Gadkari disclosed that the Government has already got on to the front foot to address critical issues, be it faulty designing or lack of over- or under-passes on roads, and Rs 11,000 crore will be spent to fix the same.
The Minister also announced that the Government will come out with a new policy within a month to promote ethanol blending with petrol. Further to oversee the automobile sector, including emission norms and safety issues, the Minister said the Government will set up a separate Transport Department in the Highways Ministry intended to streamline issues related to motor vehicles as its gamut is huge and involves issues ranging from fuel technology to motor body specifications and fuel emissions.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and State Governments will also carry out Road Safety audit on about 3,000 KM of State Highways and district roads in the country to find accident-prone areas remove engineering defects during road construction and reducing fatal road accidents.
“In the current year, the Ministry is targeting 3,000 km during the year 2016 to be covered under the audit, road safety audit guidelines are being followed in the current NHAI projects. We are also planning to engage State Governments to undertake safety audits of State highways and district roads,” said Sanjay Mitra, Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) while inaugurating a two-day seminar on “Road safety - Time for action” jointly organised by MoRTH and International Road Federation (IRF) as part of the ongoing National Road Safety Week.
IRF chairman KK Kapila regretted the fact that India has the dubious distinction of highest number of accidents in the world. “With 80% of all road deaths worldwide estimated in low-income countries, India leads the world in road accident deaths, with around 1,40,000 people being killed each year. India accounts for 10 per cent of global road accident deaths. Safer roads and mobility is one of the five pillars of the UN Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020,” said Kapila.