4th Meeting of the Consultative Committee attached to Ministry of Shipping, Road Tpt. & Highways held
Collective effort required by the Centre, States and Road users for improvement in Road Safety: T R Baalu
The Union Minister of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, Thiru T. R. Baalu today said that road safety is a national concern and reduction in road accidents with improvement in road safety can only happen through collective efforts of the Government and road users. He was speaking at the fourth Meeting of the Consultative Committee of Members of Parliament attached with the Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, here. The subject for the Meeting was ‘Road Safety’.
Speaking on the occasion, Thiru Baalu said that globally, road safety has been a matter of great concern. “The World Health Report - 2002 on reducing risks and promoting healthy life states that in the year 2000, the road traffic injuries were estimated to account for over 1.10 million deaths worldwide, which accounted to 2.3 per cent of all deaths. It has been assessed globally that the cost of road accidents on an average is between 2% to 3% of the GDP. An estimate by the World Bank and some Insurance Companies place the economic loss at over Rs.55,000 crore annually due to road accidents in our country”, the Minister informed.
“The number of motor vehicles in our country has increased from about 3 lakhs at the time of Independence to now above 7 crore. Every year around 60-70 lakhs new motor vehicles are coming on our roads. With increasing economic liberalisation, vehicles with improved technology are also plying on Indian roads. The number of road accidents has also increased from about 1.14 lakhs in the year 1970 to about 3.07 lakhs in the year 2002 with corresponding increase in the number of fatalities from 14,500 in the year 1970 to 84,674 in the year 2002”, he regretted.
Giving details of the steps initiated by the Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways for improvement in road safety, Thiru Baalu said, “ the engineering specifications / designs are constantly under review and the States are being advised accordingly. Further, awareness is being generated through various road safety campaigns utilising print, visual, audio-visual and other media as also through the NGOs. The National Highways Authority of India, which has played a pioneering role in improvement of the National Highway infrastructure in the country, is paying due attention to the engineering related safety aspects and is also involving NGOs in awareness campaigns. We are gradually harmonising our automotive standards with prevailing international norms with a two-fold objective, primarily to ensure improved safety and also to facilitate the export of our vehicles in the global market. It is with these objectives that lateral under-run and rear under-run protective devices in heavy commercial vehicles have been introduced. Introduction of seat belts and introduction of power steering are some of the other examples. I am glad to say that various Central Ministries have got together and have finalised a road safety map for the next two years for motor vehicles”.
Thiru Baalu informed that over 84% of the road accidents are attributable to the drivers in one form or the other. “We have, therefore, taken the initiative for organising two-day refresher training programmes in a big way for drivers of heavy vehicles in the unorganised sector. As against coverage of 15,199 drivers during the entire Ninth Five Year Plan period, training has been imparted to a total number of 52,014 drivers during the first two years of the Tenth Five Year Plan alone. During the year 2004-05, training to more than 45,000 drivers has been imparted. We are also emphasising the setting up of Model Driver Training Schools aimed at producing skilled drivers. Till now, we have provided assistance for setting up of eight such schools in the States of Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, National Capital Territory of Delhi and Uttaranchal. We hope to cover more areas of the country in future”, he said.
The Meeting was attended by the Minister of State for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways Shri K.H.Muniyappa, Shri M.Rajamohan Reddy, Smt. D. Purandareswari, Shri S. Ajaya Kumar, Ms. V. Radhika Selvi, Dr. R. Senthil, Shri Devendra Prasad Yadav, Shri Hari Kewal Prasad, Shri Silvius Condpan, Shri Rishang Keishing, Dr. T. Subbarami Reddy and Shri Manoj Bhattacharya, all Members of Parliament, and senior officers of Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways.
NSD
(Release ID :8880)