Chief Minister Raghubar Das assured the House on Wednesday that the State Government would be enhancing road safety besides making provisions for quick medical attention and speedy restoration of traffic at the accident site on roads in Jharkhand to mitigate deaths due to accidents.
While responding to a question raised by Bokaro MlA Biranchi Narayan, Das stated that the Government has envisioned a mechanism that would improve safety measures on all highways. Das said that road safety issue has been taken up with Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari.
“Accidents are rising very rapidly and this is cause for concern. A lot of people meet untimely deaths due to accidents. It is Government’s vision that phase wise measures are taken to provide timely medical relief to victims and the accident site is cleared to restore traffic,” said Das.
Notably, the Government has recognized around 167 black spots incidentally known for frequent accidents and instructions have been issued to all divisions of the Road Construction department to take measures that would reduce frequency of vehicle collision and bring down death toll of victims.
“Instructions have been issued to all divisions to survey all those spots where accidents take place frequently and inform us. We have earmarked Rs11.30-crore for each division to identify such spots and rectify those spots. This is the project for the current financial year and if need arises we will continue it in the next financial year also,” said Minister, Neelkanth Singh Munda.
Notably, a member of the National Road Safety Council is working on road safety policy for the State to cut down accident related death figures by 20 per cent by 2016. The policy that would be submitted in about a month would focus on bringing down casualty figure to 2000-2500 by the end of 2016. Statistics say that 5000-6000 road accidents are reported annually in Jharkhand which result in 3000-3500 deaths annually.
Incidentally, the department of Transport has also made it mandatory to install speed governor in vehicles to control speed and accidents.
Meanwhile, the State Government informed the House that Heavy Vehicle Training institute would be setup in various parts of the State and the department of Transport is working on a PPP-mode to setup an institute with people having 5 acres of land.