NEW DELHI: With higher fatality rate in road crashes on the national highways remaining a major concern, a a parliamentary committee has urged the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) to set up a dedicated Highway Safety Patrol Force, on the lines of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) to bring better traffic discipline among motorists, reduce road accidents, and protect highway assets.
The department related parliament standing committee on transport, tourism and culture recommended the formation of ‘National Highway Safety Patrol’.
As per the transport research wing of the ministry, nearly 4.73 lakh road accidents and 1.70 lakh fatalities were recorded in 2024, with national highways alone accounting for over 52,600 fatalities.
“The committee recommends that the ministry examine the feasibility of establishing a dedicated National Highway Safety Patrol, drawing upon successful institutional models such as the RPF, which has demonstrated effectiveness in asset protection and passenger safety across the railway network. Such a patrol, even if established initially on a pilot basis on high-accident corridors and expressways, would strengthen real-time accident response during the critical golden hour, enhance enforcement of speed discipline and lane discipline on access-controlled corridors,” read the 31-member panel report presented in Parliament recently.
A parliamentary panel headed by Sanjay Jha has recommended the creation of a dedicated highway protection force to safeguard national highways, citing rising safety concerns and the limitations of the current enforcement framework.
The committee observed that such a force would help prevent encroachments and damage to highway assets, while complementing digital enforcement systems being rolled out under the Intelligent Traffic Management System. It noted that the present dependence on state police forces—whose responsibilities extend far beyond highway safety—is inadequate for the scale and complexity of India’s expanding national highway network, warranting a specialised institutional mechanism.
Highlighting the issue of road safety, the panel pointed out that overspeeding continues to be a major cause of accidents. According to the Ministry’s annual report, 68.4% of road accidents in 2023 were attributed to vehicles exceeding speed limits, a trend that has remained consistently high over the years.
To address this, the committee has recommended the phased deployment of Section Control (average-speed camera) systems on access-controlled, high-speed corridors, alongside existing spot-speed monitoring infrastructure. It also called for prioritising vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technology on accident-prone stretches such as the Yamuna Expressway.
V2V communication systems enable vehicles to exchange real-time safety data—such as speed, position, direction, and braking status—helping reduce the risk of collisions and improving overall road safety.