Government gets serious on road safety

The Union Road Transport and Highways minister Oscar Fernandes has said that full efforts will be made to get the Motor Vehicle Act (MVA) amendment bill passed in the coming Parliament session as it was already cleared by the Rajya Sabha. 

 

Speaking at the concluding session of the ‘25th National Road Safety Week’ jointly organised by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and International Road Federation (IRF), Fernandes said: “The Bill (Motor Vehicle Amendment Bill), when cleared and becoming effective, will help in strengthening road safety. Legislation will play a very important role in making the country's roads safer as road fatalities are exceptionally high in India and over 138,000 people were killed in around 490,000 road accidents in 2012.”

 

“Once the proposed amendment is passed, traffic rule violators will have to cough up hefty penalties – almost 10 times more than what they pay now – for offences such as overspeeding and drunken driving. The Bill seeks to raise compensation for death resulting from a hit-and-run accident to Rs 1 lakh and Rs 50,000 for the injured in such incidents,” added Fernandes. During the concluding session, the minister launched a new logo on road safety to encourage every section of society to join hands towards making roads safer. The theme of this year’s road safety awareness is ‘When on road, always say Pehle Aap’.

 

At present, most world-class cities possess Intelligent Traffic Systems (ITS) and their police have state-of-the-art video surveillance systems in place. In a bid to replicate this, the Delhi Traffic police will soon start a pilot project of Intelligent Traffic Management Systems (ITMS) at 100 junctions in league with a private partner. With the adoption of the new technology, the challan revenue generated is expected to rise to around Rs 800-Rs 1,000 crore from the current Rs 50 crore per annum according to Taj Hassan, special commissioner, Traffic, Delhi Police.

 

This would also help optimise traffic lights to about 99.9 percent with less faults and police personnel will be able to regulate more traffic instead of enforcing it.