The National Centre for Human Settlements and Environment (NCHSE) on Monday convened a meeting to discuss the issues related to road accidents and fatalities, especially children. In the meeting subject matter specialists and a select group of Bhopal citizen participated.
Director General of the NCHSE Pradip Nandi said that with exponential growth of automobiles on the roads, India has been witnessing very high rate of road accidents and consequent loss of large number of human lives and serious injuries. As per a report of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, India recorded 5 lakhs road crashes and nearly 1.5 lakhs deaths in road accidents in the year 2016. Approximately, 1,374 crashes and 400 deaths take place every day on Indian roads.
Madhya Pradesh has also witnessed 54,947 road accidents resulting in 9,314 deaths and 55,815 injuries during 2014- 2015. This has reportedly increased over the years. As per report entitled “Road accidents in India-2015” published by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, GOI (2016) the pedestrian accounted for 9.5 per cent of road accident victims in 2015, and Madhya Pradesh accounted for 14.1 per cent of those victims. Earlier NCHSE Environment Helpline had expressed concern about pedestrian safety and urged the Government to take appropriate action to address the problem.
Experts pointed out that in 2016, more than 10,000 Children Died In Road Accidents in India, which include 547 deaths of children below 18 years of age in Madhya Pradesh.