Chief Ministers of Telugu speaking Telangana and Andhra Pradesh want their respective States to excel on all fronts. Whatever be their dreams and goals, the two States achieved dubious distinction of having highest number of road accident deaths in the country next to Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in 2015.
More than 80 per cent of the lives lost in road accidents in the country last year are from 13 States. While UP and TN registered 12.1 per cent and 10.7 per cent of these deaths, the two Telugu speaking States together are at third place with 10.6 per cent.
In fact, the total number of persons killed in road accidents in the two States in 2015 is 15,407 and almost close to the figure of 15,642 road accident deaths reported in Tamil Nadu State.
The data christened ‘Road Accidents in India - 2015’ was released by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Thursday.
Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh occupy the top three places with percentages of 13.8, 12.7 and 11.1 respectively. Together, Telangana and AP constitute 9 per cent of the total road accidents in the country. “Though it appears the two States witnessed fewer number of accidents vis-à-vis other States, it is to be noted that more lives were lost despite the accidents being fewer,” a police officer said.
Road accident fatalities are going up in the two Telugu States from 2014. While 7,908 lives were snuffed out in road crashes in 2014 in A.P., the figure went up to 8,297 in 2015. The situation is no better in Telangana. From 6,906 road accident deaths in 2014, the numbers shot up to 7,110 in 2015.
Interestingly, road accident deaths had come down in Hyderabad and Cyberabad police commissionerates of Telangana. In 2014, different factors like rigorous enforcement of traffic rules and changes in flow of traffics on some stretches helped them reduce total number of accidents and deaths as well compared to 2013.
However, they could not sustain the achievement in 2015.
