BHUBANESWAR: Odisha recorded 54,789 road accidents and 25,934 deaths in the last five years between 2018 and 2022. As many as 51,873 people were injured during the period, Commerce and Transport Minister Tukuni Sahu informed the Assembly on Thursday. In response to a question by BJP MLA Kusum Tete on rising road accidents and funds spent by the government to check fatalities, the minister said a maximum 5,467 people were killed in 11,663 accidents in 2022.
Barring 2020, the Covid pandemic year, when 4,738 people had died in 9,817 accidents, the number of fatalities were above 5,000 a year in the remaining three years. As many as 5,081 people were killed in 10,983 accidents in 2021, 5,333 in 11,064 accidents in 2019 and 5,315 in 11,262 accidents in 2018.
The minister said the state government has paid a compensation of Rs 2 lakh to the kin of a person killed in an accident involving an unidentified vehicle while seriously injured persons were given Rs 50,000. Around Rs 15.68 crore has been disbursed as compensation to accident victims and the families of the deceased in last five years, she informed.
The compensation amount rose from Rs 51 lakh in 2019 to Rs 5.39 crore in 2022. So far this year, Rs 5.93 crore has been disbursed to the victims and the kin of deceased persons. Several measures have been put in place to curb the road accidents and reduce fatalities during the period. The government has spent Rs 79.21 crore on road safety programmes and awareness to bring down the road mishaps in last five years, the minister stated.
As per data from the Transport department, as many as 4,178 people died in 8,939 accidents between January and September this year. While the number of accidents have increased in 16 districts, the growth rate is highest at 41 per cent in Nabarangpur.