HYDERABAD: The move for making Road Safety Authority (RSA) a separate department, which had been pending for two years, has finally received approval from Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao recently.
The CM’s approval comes at a time when RSA’s data on road accidents in Telangana shows that 35 lives are lost in every 100 accidents, much more than the national average of 29 deaths.
“The Chief Minister has signed the file on RSA and the budgetary grant for it is being worked out,” said T Krishna Prasad, director-general of RSA of Telangana. The authority is, at present, working as part of the state police.
RSA would be the nodal agency coordinating with other departments. It would be the working, monitoring and enforcement agency, he said, adding that it would have senior officers on deputation from the law & order police, excise, Road Transport Authority (RTA) and other wings.
“At present, there is no such department in any state in the country. Such authorities are all working in silos like us,” he said. Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh all have highway patrol police but don’t have a separate department that can coordinate everything, he added.
“At present, there are no government agencies conducting third-party audit of state and national highways in the country.”
“It is the roads and buildings department that builds roads and maintains its roads as well. Hence the need for an overall independent authority such as the RSA,” said Prasad.