BHUBANESWAR: The Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety has asked the state government and the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to remove obstructions from the highways, build medians, identify accident-prone areas and place proper signage to curb accidents.
The apex court panel’s secretary Sanjay Mital, who is on a visit to the state to review measures taken by the Odisha government to reduce road deaths, has also advised the government to strengthen trauma care facilities and intensify enforcement against traffic rules’ violations.
Before his field visits, he had attended a high-level meeting on road safety chaired by chief secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra and discussed with Transport department officials and top police officials. He stressed on regular conduct of district-level road safety meetings for resolution of issues that led to road accidents.
The chief secretary advised officials to arrange speed breakers on the roads connecting the highways, intensify enforcement against traffic rule violators and take strict action against those driving under the influence of alcohol.
Reiterating that the golden hour of an accident is very important, Mahapatra asked officials to expand the training of student volunteers to provide first-aid to injured persons.
Even as Odisha was declared a high performer with 67 per cent (pc) marks after an audit by a team of consultants engaged by the SC panel in June last year, the state has recorded around 7.6 pc more road fatalities in 2022 than that of 2021.
While 5,081 people died and 9,782 people were injured in 10,983 accidents in 2021, the number of fatalities went up to 5,467 last year when 1032 people were injured.
A four-fold strategy - enforcement, education, improvement in road engineering and emergency care to make roads safer notwithstanding, the rising road accidents has become a headache for the state administration.
Meanwhile, the Transport department will also provide training to 1,000 tribal drivers in the newly established driving and training research centres at Berhampur, Keonjhar and Bonai this year.
Principal secretary Usha Padhee said arrangements are being made to impart road safety training to an average of 1,800 people per day in the RTOs in the state. Health secretary Shalini Pandit and ADG (Crime Branch) Arun Bothra were also present in the meeting.