Parliament diary: Cashless treatment for accident victims

As required under Section 162 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, the government is formulating a scheme to provide cashless treatment to the victims of road accidents caused by the use of motor vehicles, Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari informed the Lok Sabha on Thursday. Pilots to test the scheme are underway in Chandigarh, Puducherry, Assam, Haryana, Punjab and Uttarakhand. Key features of the scheme are — victims are entitled to cashless treatment up to a maximum of Rs 1.5 lakh per victim per accident for a maximum period of seven days from the date of accident as per health benefits packages for trauma and polytrauma of Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri -Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) and applicability to all road accidents caused by use of motor vehicles in any category.

73 stampede deaths at pilgrimages

There have been 73 stampede deaths at pilgrimage sites in India between 2019 and 2022, Minister of Tourism Gajendra Shekhawat informed the Rajya Sabha. He said crowd management was mainly the job of states and urban local bodies. In 2022, there were 22 stampede deaths at pilgrimages, 25 in 2021, 14 in 2020 and 12 in 2019.

Domestic air traffic rising

The number of domestic passengers handled at Indian airports has been steadily rising over the years. This number has grown from 166.8 million in 2021-22 to 270.34 million in 2022-23 to 306.79 million in 2023-24. The respective year on year growth for the three year segments has been 58.5 per cent, 62.1 per cent and 13.5 per cent, according to the data shared in the LS by Minister of State for Aviation Murlidhar Mohol.

14.10L accidents reported on integrated database

Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari informed the Lok Sabha that the Integrated Road Accident Database (iRAD) system had been rolled out in all states/ UTs. Till December 9, 14,10,590 road accidents have been reported on the system since its rollout. He said the government has also implemented a pilot programme for providing cashless treatment to road accident victims. “iRAD system has been integrated with Transaction Management System (TMS) of National Health Authority for smooth implementation of the programme,” he said.

(By Aditi Tandon)