J&K tops in road fatalities

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, January 14

People have been dying on the roads in Jammu and Kashmir almost everyday. The scale of casualties and injuries caused by road accidents is alarming.

Nearly 1,000 persons have been losing their lives in road mishaps each year and the number of victims getting maimed is much larger.

Documents from 2009 to 2011 stated that 18,786 road accidents had been reported in the state, in which 3,288 persons had been killed and 27,165 injured.

The number of road accidents was 6,700 in 2012. The figure was 6,457 in 2013. The number of deaths was 992 last year at an average of 19 per week.

Statistics provided by various official sources point out that deaths and injuries caused by road accidents have been continuing unabated.

The sources include the accidental deaths and suicides in India report of the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB). It says Jammu and Kashmir topped the list of accidental death prone states in 2013.

In Jammu and Kashmir, 63.5 per cent of the total unnatural deaths had been caused by road accidents compared to the all-India figure of 36.4 per cent.

The police said 14 persons had been killed and 51 injured in road accidents in the Kashmir division this year so far. The toll included seven deaths in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district on Monday.

Abdul Gani Mir, Inspector General of Police, Kashmir division, said on Monday that there was a need to work at both the individual and collective levels to stop negligent driving in the state.

“It has been found that some drivers of public transport vehicles drive after consuming drugs. This leads to negligent and rash driving,” he said.

Muneer Khan, Inspector General of Police (Traffic), said there was a need for multiple remedial measures, including a revamp of the Motor Vehicles Act.

“Rules under the Act have become redundant. The penalty imposed on offenders is less and has become ineffective. There is a need for greater awareness at the school and transporter levels,” he said.

He said there was a need for strict enforcement as a majority of road accidents had been caused by human errors like rash driving, over-speeding and driving under fatigue on long routes.

The latest Disaster Management Plan, prepared by consultants of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences for the administration, recommended an appropriate incident command system to deal with accidents.

The Plan recommended identification and mapping of pressure points and locations, normal directions for movement and joining of traffic stretches.

It suggested that the Transport Department should identify accident prone areas in the state, which were 50 at present, and take necessary steps.