Uncertainty prevails over the fate of inter-disciplinary experts functioning as Technical Support Group (TSG) in the Kerala Road Safety Authority (KRSA) for the last three years.
The TSG was set up by the government as part of strengthening and capacity building of the KRSA and to support road safety components of the World Bank (WB)-assisted KSTP-II. The salary of the five TSG personnel were met from the KSTP Fund and the agreement with the KSTP ended in April.
The TSG is headed by the executive director of Road Safety and includes directors of Road User Safety, Government Support and Community Liaison, Data Analysis and Performance Monitoring, and Campaigns and Public Relations.
Although the KSTP had agreed to pay salary from its funds for TSG personnel till July, sources said the salary had not been paid yet. The funds for subsequent months will have to be made available from the KRSA Fund.
Confusion prevails over the disbursement of salary from August as the KSTP has informed that it will not be able to provide funds as the agreement with the WB had expired in April and the project is entering its last phase.
The three-year tenure of the TSG personnel will start ending in November and December, and the government will have to take a call on the future of the TSG.
Besides supporting the road safety components of the KSTP Phase II, particularly planning, designing, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of Safe Corridor Demonstration Project (SCDP), it was involved in replicating good practices and success stories of the SCDP to other districts under the Challenge Fund.
Joint site inspection to accident black spots with the police, PWD and RTO officials and suggest traffic calming measures were taken up. The TSG was behind the preparation of reports on crash data analysis and compounding fee collected in traffic violations.
While evaluating the institutional dimension and functioning of the KRSA, the Supreme Court-appointed committee on road safety had directed the State to examine the gap analysis done by the committee-instituted audit report for creating technical capability in the KRSA.
A technical cadre to be incorporated in the Act had also been recommended. Suitable amendment to the Act is with the government for necessary action, official sources said.
