Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has said the government aims to halve the number of road accidents and their resulting deaths by 2030, revising its earlier target of achieving it in 2024. He said that despite best efforts, they have not got the expected results in reducing accidents.
Requested the states
Earlier in September 2022, the Minister of Road Transport and Highways had called upon all state transport ministers and officials to work together to reduce road accidents and their resulting deaths by 50 percent by 2024.
Releasing a report titled 'Road Safety Good Practices in India' prepared by SaveLife Foundation, Gadkari said, the latest target we have set is that before 2030 we will reduce accidents and deaths by 50 per cent. We will work to halve the number of road accidents and deaths due to them in the country by 2030.
There are so many deaths every year
According to a report released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, the number of road accidents in India increased by 12 percent to more than 4.6 lakh in 2022, resulting in 19 deaths every hour. The report revealed that 53 road accidents occur every hour in the country. A total of 4,61,312 road accidents were recorded by states and union territories (UTs) during 2022, in which 1,68,491 people lost their lives and 4,43,366 were injured.
How much increased
The report titled Road Accidents in India – 2022 said accidents have increased by 11.9 percent, fatalities by 9.4 percent and injuries by 15.3 percent compared to last year.
Lives can be saved
Meanwhile, the SaveLife Foundation reports that adopting successful corridor-based road safety practices could save more than 40,000 lives every year. The report highlighted good practices such as the National Highway 48 (old Mumbai-Pune Highway) Zero Fatality Corridor (ZFC) project, which recorded a 61 per cent reduction in fatality rates between 2018 and 2021. Similarly, the Sabarimala safe zone has maintained zero road accident deaths between 2019 and 2021, serving as a blueprint for pilgrimage sites across the country.
(PC: ANI)
