Road safety is no more an urban concern alone. With the influx of high-speed motorised vehicles to the rural roads severely endangering the safety of road users — particularly of schoolchildren, women carrying headloads of agricultural produce and cyclists — the Centre has asked the States to address road safety issues while preparing detailed project reports (DPR) for rural roads under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY).
The traffic on these roads mainly consists of bicycles, some two-wheelers, some animal-drawn vehicles and a few agricultural tractors.
“Road safety is a matter of serious concern and there is a need to tackle road safty issues on priority in rural road sector also. The problem gets aggravated because all the road users utilise the same narrow road width of a single lane, where crossing and overtaking becomes very difficult. Moreover, road users either ignore traffic norms or have lower levels of education in the rural areas.
“Though we have been asking the States to incorporate the safety measures as indicated in the operation manual of PMGSY, it is hardly being complied with,” said a senior Rural Development Minister.
In a recent communication with the State Governments, the Ministry of Rural Development has emphasised on incorporating issues related to road safety such as providing speed breakers at some critical locations like schools, junctions of rural roads and entry points at habitations with a view to regulating speed of motor vehicles, provision of adequate safety sign boards, adequate provison of road flanks etc while preparing DPRs.
Emphasis has also been laid on appropriate road safety related measures at manned or unmanned railway crossing on the rural roads and conducting social audits.
The Ministry also asked the State Government to conduct road safety audits and check the specific requirement at the stage of DPR preparation to address concerns. Incorporating appropriate safety design standards, identifying the important gateways, junctions and transitional road linkages can go a long way in minimising the road accidents.
As per a Government report, in 2011, the number of accidents in rural areas (2,66,231) was larger, being 53.5 per cent compared to urban areas (2,31,455) 49 per cent. The percentage of injured persons (59 4 per cent) was also higher as also fatalities (63.4 per cent).