CHENNAI: One of the main features of the Road Transport and Safety Bill 2014 is the creation of a lead agency at the national level. Failure in ensuring the safety of roads is usually attributed to the fact that despite the huge loss of life, there is no single agency that can be held accountable.
The new bill moots the creation of a national-level agency which will be responsible for initiating road safety measures in coordination with multiple departments.
While experts say the new body will fill a long-felt vacuum, they stress that such agencies must be created at the State and district levels too. “Presently, we have a State-level committee with officers drawn from various departments which meets just once in a year. Each of them have their own priorities and are not able to dedicate time for issues concerning road safety,” says N S Srinivasan, a renowned traffic safety expert. The failure of the State Road Safety Council was evident when it did not meet the target set during its creation in 2007. Tamil Nadu’s road safety policy, framed in 2006, set a target of reducing road accident fatalities and injuries by 20 per cent by 2013, with 2006 as the base year. In an anti-climax, the fatalities and injuries grew by 41.3 per cent in 2013. “The committee lacked expertise and coordinated approach. They just ended up spending on capital expenditures like installing road signals, which even other departments can do,” adds Srinivasan. The need for a dedicated agency for road safety was visualised way back in 2005. The Centre’s Sundar Committee report strongly recommended the setting up of national and State-level road safety and management boards. “Responsibility for road safety is diffused and there is no single agency to deal with a range of problems associated with it. There is also no effective mechanism for coordinating the activities of the different agencies dealing with road safety. The role of key ministries and public sector agencies in improving road safety is peripheral. It is not a priority area in their agenda for development,” the report noted.
Even the international community, along with the World Health Organisation, supports the formation of such a lead agency as efforts of a wide spectrum of departments are required in addressing road safety. For example, the State highways and local municipal bodies are responsible for building
Roads, the transport department issues driving licenses and checks the registration and fitness of vehicles, the police is responsible for regulating traffic and enforcing laws while the health department takes care of emergency treatment.
Srinivasan, however, says road safety is a State subject as per our Constitution and hence the bill must provide for creation of such lead agencies at State-level too. The national agency can help the State agency in expertise and funding. “A State-level agency will be more effective. The Centre must provide it funding,” he said.