391 black spots claim 4,600 lives every year in Punjab

Nitin Jain

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, January 15

As many as 391 black spots snuff out on an average 4,600 lives and leave thousands injured in Punjab every year, a recent report has revealed.

Taking cognisance of the matter, the state government has created a special non-lapsable road safety fund by diverting 50 per cent of the compounding fee/fines collected by the Police and Transport Departments to facilitate the proper execution of road safety measures in the state.

As a first installment, Rs 40.52 crore has been released by the Finance Department as a non-lapsable road safety fund for purchase of safety equipment and taking up various road safety measures in the state.

Reflective tapes on stray cattle

At least 400 lives every year, which account for more than one daily, are lost in road accidents caused by stray cattle in the state, mostly during night. Reviewing the road safety measures, Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan has ordered pasting red reflective tapes on the horns of stray cattle roaming on roads so that these could be spotted by motorists in the dark

Besides, the state government has ordered a third-party safety audit of all roads by an independent agency in the state.

Principal Secretary, Transport, K Siva Prasad told The Tribune that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had already rectified 91 black spots while the remaining accident-prone spots on national highways, identified by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, would be fixed within this year.

To monitor the road safety issues in an efficacious manner, a full time lead agency — the Punjab State Road Safety Council — has been constituted with retired IAS officer R Venkatratnam as its Director-General to oversee the implementation of road safety measures.

The maiden meeting of the agency was chaired by Transport Minister Razia Sultana recently to deliberate upon the safety issues and implement them in a proper manner. The agency has been mandated to meet at least twice every year.

Prasad said the council had decided to procure equipment such as breath analysers, barricades, laser speed guns, CCTV cameras and car body cutters with the money provided from non-lapsable road safety funds and supply them to enforcement agencies.

At the district level, District Road Safety Committees have been constituted to monitor and look after the road safety issues and spread awareness. To spread mass awareness, a month-long campaign will be launched by the Transport Minister on January 18 under the theme ‘Sadak suraksha, jeevan raksha’.

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