The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : ‘Land needed for road expansion’

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Thursday, Jan 08, 2009
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Kerala

Kerala - Kochi

‘Land needed for road expansion’

Staff Reporter

KOCHI: Transport Minister Mathew T. Thomas has said that unavailability of land is hampering development of roads in the State.

Delivering the inaugural address at the valedictory of the State level road safety week at the district collectorate here on Wednesday, Mr. Thomas said that roads in the State had not been developed in proportion to the growth in the number of vehicles.

“Though there are various schemes of the Union government for road development difficulty in getting land is posing a problem,” he lamented.

Mr. Thomas said that accidents in the State had come down slightly from over 40,000 in 2006 to 37,000 in 2008 as per the figures till November. He pointed out that the State accounted for 10 per cent of all accidents taking place in the country.

Mr. Thomas said that as per an accident reduction plan brought out by the National Transportation Planning and Research Centre the number of vehicles in the State had jumped from a mere 24,000 in 1960 to 45 lakh now. The total accidents in 1960 were 1,523, 63 accidents for every 1,000 vehicles. For sake of statistics it could be pointed out that this has come down to nine accidents per every 1,000 vehicles, he said.

The students of St. Thomas College, Pala, staged a street play ‘Maranavandy’ to spread the message of road safety.

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