The State Government on Wednesday came under severe attack for its negligence in installation of speed limitation device in all transport vehicles, including buses and trucks, to minimise the number of road accidents despite the directives of the Supreme Court.
Speed governor is a device that can be installed in all kinds of vehicles to limit top speed.
While the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had notified installation of speed governors in April last year, the State Transport Authority filed a counter affidavit in the Supreme Court on March 31 this year saying that a vendor for supply and installation of speed governors in the State would be selected by inviting tender.
“The Odisha Government had conducted a process of short-listing original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and even held pre-biding meeting for the purpose. However, the State Government suddenly left all the process in the halfway and notified that the device can be procured from open market for reasons best known to it,” said National Road Safety Council member Dr Kamal Soi.
Procurement of speed governor from open marker would only give rise to corruption. It would have no financial and technological service guarantee. It would not follow the MIS system to ensure quality of speed governors installed, he added.
Soi said that due to lack of enforcement, the desired results for installation of speed governors could not be obtained. If the device was installed through a legitimate tender process, it could have minimised road accidents by 20 per cent.
He demanded restarting of all the processes for implementation of the scheme forthwith.
As per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, Odisha recorded 10,542 road accidents and 4,303 deaths in the year 2015.