BHUBANESWAR: Establishment of Trauma Care Centres (TCC) that could reduce deaths due to road accidents has missed the deadline in Odisha. Of the planned nine such facilities by March last year, not a single centre has come up.
The Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety had directed the State Government to set up at least one TCC in each district two years ago. While only eight are functional now, the target was set for nine more centres by March 2019 and 19 in 2020-21.
Shockingly, the trauma facilities could not be opened as the Government did not create required posts of doctors and paramedics on time. The issue cropped up during a review on road safety action plan chaired by Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy. Principal Secretary of Finance department Ashok K Meena on Saturday said posts of both doctors and paramedics have been approved. Health department can now start the process for recruitment, he said.
As per the latest National Crime Records Bureau data, Odisha holds the dubious distinction of registering highest rate of hit and run cases. Apart from the poor infrastructure and enforcement of traffic rules, absence of trauma care are to be blamed.
Even as the fatalities reduced by 32 per cent (pc) during January and May as compared to the same period of last year, the death of 360 persons in accidents during the lockdown period in April and May has exposed the poor performance of road safety indicators.
Lack of stringent enforcement against traffic violators and emergency care post accidents has been attributed as major reasons behind the deaths. Of the target set for crackdown on violators, police have achieved only 42.36 pc in over speeding category, 25 pc in drunken driving, 65.77 pc in mobile phone use and 54.31 pc in no helmet use during driving.
Similarly, the enforcement agencies of the RTOs have been able to achieve only 47.24 pc, 15 pc, 24.25 pc and 43 pc respectively. Although highway patrol was introduced in some patches of the five selected stretches on national highways, it is yet to be intensified due to lack of enforcement personnel.
Principal Secretary of Transport department Madhusudan Padhi said as directed by the SC committee, the agencies have been asked to make the enforcement stringent against triple riding, wrong side driving, rash driving and non use of helmet.