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Journalism of Courage
The Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways has finally woken up to increasing number of road deaths in the country. The Ministry has decided to table the National Road Safety Bill in the Parliament in the next session.
“The National Road Safety Bill will help institute state level road safety boards that will look into all aspects from safe road designs, database, vulnerable passengers, driver training and refresher courses and enabling of legal and financial set up conducive for road safety. The Bill is linked with the idea of creating a national road safety board fund through imposition of a 1 per cent cess on fuel. The Bill will come up in the next Parliament session,” said Brahm Dutt, Secretary, Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways.
Dutt also confirmed what all road safety experts were fearing all along. “India has the dubious distinction of over a lakh deaths due to road accidents in a year now,” Dutt said. He was speaking on the sidelines of a workshop on National Road Safety and Transport Policy recently.
India’s road accident tally was the second highest in the world in 2005 at over 96,000 deaths and is expected to top the list once figures for 2006 are out. China, which currently records most accident death, is fast bringing down the tally. The number of traffic accidents in China dropped by an annual average 10.8 per cent for four consecutive years from 2003.
The draft National Road Safety Bill is based on the recommendations of the Sundar Committee that suggested a series of urgent road safety measures besides setting up of state level road safety boards. The committee report was submitted to the Ministry in February this year.
