Economic and Political Weekly May 26, 20071884

ROADS

Ensuring SafetyThe government recently tabled the Motor Vehicles (Amend-ment) Bill in Parliament seeking to revise the fines andpenalties specified in the existing laws and also raising com-pensation amounts for victims of road accidents. State gov-ernments have also been authorised to compound the finesif required. Last month, the Delhi High Court mandated anadditional Rs 500 fine for every offence besides the fines (nowhiked) specified by the Act. The proposed amendments areindeed timely. Major investments have been and will continue

Economic and Political Weekly May 26, 2007 1885

EPW

to be made in roads (although more on highways and cityroads than in the villages) and the automotive sector has beenattracting a steady flow of large investments. In the schemeof things of the union ministry of shipping, road transport andhighways the National Highways Development Project willsee an investment of Rs 2,27,258 crore between 2005 and2012. However, revisions of road-related laws remain aninadequate measure in ensuring that safety on roads iscommensurate with the quality of some of the infrastructurethat is sought to be provided and upgraded.

The Sundar Committee, which submitted its report in Februarythis year, was set up by the union ministry of surface transport,ships and highways in 2005 to address an entire gamut of issuesrelating to road safety. The previous year, the World Reporton Road Traffic Injury Prevention by the World Bank and WorldHealth Organisation (WHO) had warned that road traffic injuriesremain a major and neglected global public health problem.More than 1.2 million people perished in road crashes globallyevery year, of which around 92,000 deaths occurred in India;the largest 12 cities in the country accounted for a third ofall these deaths. The total number of road traffic injuries anddeaths worldwide has been projected to rise by 65 per centbetween 2000 and 2020 whereas in low income and middleincome countries, deaths would rise by as much as 80 per cent.The majority of such deaths are at present of vulnerable roadusers, pedestrians, pedal cyclists and motorcyclists.

As the Sundar Committee report notes, a plethora of agenciesalready exists for ensuring road safety, but there is no coor-dination among them. Besides the nodal National Road SafetyCouncil, the Transport Development Council, the NationalHighways Authority of India, there are the state public worksdepartments, and other local level organisations looking totransport, law and order and urban development. The committeemooted the setting up of an apex road safety and traffic manage-ment board, through a parliamentary enactment, with regulatoryand advisory functions. More vitally the body will be legallyempowered to set standards and designs for mechanicallypropelled vehicles and national highways and have powers tolevy penalties if quality standards are not met. It also suggestedearmarking 1 per cent of the proceeds from the cess on dieseland petrol towards a Road Safety Fund that could help in

establishing much needed trauma centres as well as ensureadequate rehabilitation and compensation to accident vic-tims.

The mandating of certain standards for highways and vehicleswill lead to the framing of requisite quality norms, which atpresent vary remarkably across states. However, an apex body,as proposed by the Sundar Committee, with such overwhelmingjurisdictional authority might arguably aggravate the problemof overlapping responsibilities between different agencies.The proposed board appears ideally suited to coordinate safetyissues on national and state highways, while managing roadswithin a city will continue to be overseen by different agencies.

Several aspects of road safety, moreover, have been mootedin the past but these have rarely been followed up. Upgradingthe infrastructure to facilitate e-governance would greatlymitigate problems faced by the people and enforcement agencieswith regard to ensuring the compliance of necessary enactmentssuch as the Motor Vehicles Act and also the issuance of drivinglicences and other necessary authorisations. Road safety needsto be made an integral part of urban transport and developmentpolicies. The national urban transport policy recently adopteddoes emphasise the need to encourage non-motorised formsof transport but does little by way of raising the issue of roadsafety. Simultaneously the state and regional transport authori-ties need to be made more accountable and equipped with morepowers and facilities. Civil society organisations have beenhelpful in promoting road safety awareness, as has been seenrecently in the case of Punjab, one of the first states to proposea road safety council. While several highway patrolling vehiclesequipped with wireless systems and first aid kits have beendeployed on the highways, the state police in association withcertain NGOs also organised awareness camps relating to trafficmanagement and safety at district and subdivisional levels.

The difficulty in improving road safety is essentially of twokinds. A rapid and one could even say a reckless expansionof the automobile industry, without any regard to developmentof associated infrastructure (other than of highways) hasincreased congestion tremendously over the past 15 years.Making matters worse is the inadequate monitoring of trafficand the extremely poor driving skills of all categories of usersof motorised transport in the country.

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