Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari on Saturday said serious efforts are underway to bring down the number of fatalities in road accidents by 50 per cent.
“Nearly 1.5 lakh people die in around five lakh road mishaps every year. The (transport) ministry is working to reduce the number of fatalities by 50 per cent,” Gadkari told mediapersons. He said the government wants to improve road conditions, including repairs, and enhance visibility to minimise road curves to save lives.
“I am pained to note that lakhs of people succumb to serious injuries on roads and leave their family members behind to face a number of problems and hardship,” the minister said. He said about three lakh people suffer multiple fractures.
“Our dream is to make India a accident-free country,” he said, adding that only one accident was reported in Sweden last year. “India is one of the countries having a large number of accidents and fatalities. To overcome this, the ministry has identified over 2,500 accident spot on the national highways,” he added.
Gadkari said national highways constituted only two per cent of the road network but are catering to almost 80 per cent of traffic. “The high density of traffic is causing safety hazards,” he said.
He added, “Our ministry has plans to increase the national highways network to least 1.5 lakh km from 80,000 km when the NDA government took over. In the process, we already have about one lakh km of roads, which means an addition of 20,000 km,” he said. Gadkari said the national highways network in Maharashtra has increased from 5,660 km to 21,976 km during the NDA regime.
Referring to the ambitious Sagarmala project, he said 28 mega projects have been planned with an investment of Rs 95,000 crore for infrastructure development and for development of ports and industry. “In the last two years, total investment approved and commenced is Rs 29,382 crore,” he said. —PTI
National highways constitute 2% of roads but cater
to almost 80%
of traffic
