Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Sep 3: Statistics from the Public Works Department (PWD) says that Karnataka stands third in the country when it comes to road accidents.
In 2017, 42,000 road accidents had been recorded in Karnataka and this year up to March 2018, around 10,944 accidents have already been reported. To tackle the issue, PWD has mandated to dedicate a certain portion of the project cost towards road safety.
Speaking at a national workshop on ‘Road Safety through Traffic Calming Measures,’ held on September 8, PWD Secretary K S Krishna Reddy said that currently the accidents are declining due to policy interventions.
The workshop was jointly organised by the state government and the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) with an intention to find solutions to curb the rising accidents.
Reddy said that separate fund is allotted in the detailed project report (DPR) for road safety. “While the amount earmarked is usually around 2 to 3 per cent of the project cost, in Western Ghats region the amount earmarked is 5 per cent. This rule is applied to all projects taken up under the Karnataka State Highways Improvement Project, the Karnataka Road Development Corporation and the State Highway Development Project,” he said.
Identifying black spots
The state governments have been directed to identify and rectify accident black spots by the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety headed by former judge Justice K S Radhakrishnan.
The Karnataka government identified 565 black spots across the state as per the MORTH definition, of which PWD rectified 195 in 2016 and 118 in 2017 with funds which were dedicated to fix black spots.
Reddy said the need on appointing road safety auditors and consultants to plan projects have been included in the terms of reference.
Asian Institute of Transport Development (AITD) Director (research) B N Puri highlighted the importance of road safety, claiming 17 people die in road accidents every day.
“AITD has a target of training 5500 people in road safety,” he said, adding more measures are needed to be taken in Karnataka to curb accidents.
While Karnataka stood third, Tamil Nadu has the highest number of road accidents followed by Madhya Pradesh.