In three years, potholes were the cause of 367 road accidents across the State, claiming 212 lives. A data of ministry of road transport and highways (MORTH) show that in year 2017 alone, potholes were reported cause of accident in 118 cases.
Replying to a question related to potholes in Rajya Sabha earlier this week, Mansukh L Mandaviya, the Minister of State in the ministry of road transport and highways informed that in 2017, a total of 9423 accidents in the country where caused due to potholes while in Jharkhand the number was 118.
The data shared by Mandaviya also showed that the number of road accidents caused by potholes in the State was 49 in 2015 and 200 in 2016. The number of persons killed in such accidents was 21 in 2015, 127 in 2016 and 64 in 2017 while the number of persons injured was 43, 211 and 94 in 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively.
However, the data of MORTH only covers such cases which are reported with the police. Rishabh Anand of Rise Up, an organization working on road safety in Ranchi said that there are a huge number of cases related to potholes which go unreported.
“The cases are reported to police only if there is a major accident leading to grievous injuries or fatality. However, we get a number of cases where people sustain minor injuries caused by accidents due to potholes,” he said.
Anand pointed out that promotion of community reporting will lead to a reality check of such cases.
Meanwhile, the State Road Construction department has been taken serious steps to ensure that potholes are filled immediately.
Engineer in chief of road construction department, Rash Bihari Singh said, “The department has allotted around Rs. 10 to 15 lakh to every executive engineer (EE) in all the 26 divisions, only for filling up of potholes. They have been given strict instruction that they have to get a pothole filled up as soon as they are reported about it.”
Besides, the road construction department has also issued direction to the EEs to use cold mix during rainy season to fill potholes.
“The cases of road accidents increase during rainy seasons as the potholes are not visible due to water logging. Usually, a hot mix is used to fill up potholes but it takes around two days to set in. On the other hand, quick setting cool mix, which is costlier than hot mix takes only half an hour to set,” Singh said.