New Delhi: Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said that an average of 400 persons die every day in road accidents in the country with ‘faulty engineering’ being a major cause.
Releasing a report on road accidents in India in 2015, the Minister said that he is ‘deeply pained’ at the findings that show 17 deaths in 57 crashes per hour and over 54 per cent of those getting killed being in the age group of 15-34 years. The data shows that 1.46 lakh people were killed in road accidents in calendar year 2015, up 4.6 per cent against 2014.
He said that not much has changed even after two years of ‘dedicated work and sincere efforts’.
“Let people criticise us but I want to make the report public. Our two years of dedicated work and sincere efforts has resulted in not much change but we are committed to changing the scenario as I cannot allow this. My heart fills with immense pain,” he said.
“This magnitude was not killed in wars, epidemic and militancy,” he added.
Road accidents were at 5.01 lakh in 2015, up 2.5 per cent. Road accident injuries have also increased to over 5 lakh in 2015, up 1.4 per cent.
According to the data of the Transport Research Wing of the Transport Ministry, drivers’ fault has been revealed as the single most responsible factor (77.1 per cent) for road accidents, killings and injuries on all roads in the country.
“Human sacrifices cannot be allowed. We have taken a slew of steps in the last two years to minimise this including launch of Pradahan Mantri Sadak Suraksha Yojana and earmarking 1 per cent of the project cost for road safety that translates to Rs 5,000 crore on it,” the Minister said.
With two-wheelers accounting for almost 29 per cent of road accidents, Gadkari invited ideas for lighter-weight helmets, which would lower the resistance of helmet users.
Overloaded vehicles accounted for 17.2 per cent of road fatalities and 15.4 per cent of accidents.
Gadkari also sought to blame the previous government, saying that the steps taken by the “UPA regime to economise construction cost has done away with several overbridges and underpasses on many crucial roads leading to high number of accidents at several places including on Delhi-Gurgaon stretch”.
He said the government is confident of bringing down road fatalities by 50 per cent in a year’s span through massive initiatives that include decision to construct 4-lane highways where the traffic is over 10,000 pcu (passenger car unit) as against previous specification of 25,000 pcu.
Gadkari further said that cameras will be installed on National Highways to check errant drivers who would face stricter penalties.
"We are hopeful that the new Motor Vehicle Act is passed in the upcoming session of Parliament as a Group of Ministers, headed by Transport Minister of Rajasthan is likely to submit its report on stricter penalties and after the Cabinet nod the same would be introduced in Parliament," Gadkari said.
The Minister also said that 30 per cent of licences in India were "bogus".
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