The Centre has identified “faulty road safety assessment and construction plans” even on newly constructed and upgraded rural roads as one of the major causes behind the accidents on rural roads in India. In 2015, the five lakh kilomter of rural roads saw far more accidents that roads than urban roads the country.
The accidents on the rural roads, constructed under the Government’s flagship scheme, Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojna (PMGSY), accounted for 53.8 per cent of total road mishaps in 2015.
The percentage of road accident fatalities (61.0 per cent) and injuries (59.1 per cent) were also more in rural areas when compared with the urban roads. (see box)
Waking up to this menace, the Union Rural Development Ministry has now directed the States to frame a Rural Road Safety Action plan at the earliest to monitor safety issue during road constructions to curb accidents.
The National Rural Roads Redevelopment Agency in collaboration with Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the States will also soon release a rural road safety manual to guide the road construction agencies.
A senior official from the Ministry said that the need of the rural road safety action plans has been felt in view of rising accidents on the stretches constructed under the PMGSY.
“Initially road safety issue and steps for mitigation of accidental hazards were not given much importance as traffic volume was low so as the number of roads. But now keeping in view that substantial network of rural roads have been constructed and traffic is on increase, need for road safety and preparation of annual plans in this regard is a must,” the official said.
In order to implement the road safety issues, the implementing States have to have their proper in-house capacity for monitoring these issues during planning, construction and operation.
The Government has also decided to set up a separate cell within the State Rural Road Development Agency (SRRDA) for taking care of the road safety issues. “Such cells will be useful in educating the road users, public, contractors, executing staff in mitigating loss of life as well as loss of life and damage to road infrastructure and vehicles,” the official added.
State-wise, in 2015, Tamil Nadu topped the list with 40,526 accident cases on rural roads followed by Maharashtra (37,506) and Madhya Pradesh (27,550). Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh too reported accidents cases in five digits.
Not only in road mishaps, fatalities in rural roads in Southern State Tamil Nadu were highest, claiming 9,800 lives followed by Maharashtra (8958), Uttar Pradesh (8372), Rajasthan (7535), Karnataka (7518) and Andhra Pradesh (6141).