HYDERABAD: As Telangana gets a new set of 17 new Members of Parliament, activists and experts are urging these MPs to make use of their MPLADS funds for road safety concerns this time around. The plea by four organisations — Indian Federation of Road Safety, Avoid Accident, People’s Trust and Patiala Foundation — has translated into a new petition on Change.org urging the 17 MPs from Telangana and other parts of the country to divert a part of their Rs 5 crore Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) fund for creating safer roads for all.
Road safety is still a major concern for the country that goes relatively unnoticed. In Telangana, as per the Road Safety Authority, 5,985 people died in 11 months of 2018 while 21,818 people were injured in the same period.
While the Road Transport Authority, traffic and local municipalities are working towards reducing this number, there is little to no contribution towards this aspect by the elected representatives.
As per official data, majority of the works recommended by MPs from Telangana during the 16th Lok Sabha term pertained to drinking water facilities and a total of Rs 2,182 crore were allotted for these works during the period. This was followed by works in railways, bridges and roads with around Rs 5,491 crore funds allotted for these works. During the same period, the MPs allotted Rs 3,629 crore for improving the public facilities. However, the Telangana MPs share, from their MPLAD funds, towards road safety was mostly negligible.
Three requests
In light of this, the petition by the four organisations is highly critical and it makes three requests to the elected representatives. The first and most important one is to eradicate the ‘Black Spots’ in their constituency. A Black Spot is a 500m stretch in which more than five accident deaths take place in a given year and as per the Road Safety Authority, 56 black spots were identified in Telangana by the end of 2018. The second request to the MPs is to spend their funds on establishing Safe School Zones with low budget road infrastructural improvements and traffic calming.
The third request is to establish Post Crash Care Guidance and Counselling Centres in each district headquarter to assist crash victims and their bereaved families in getting justice, compensation and rehabilitation. “At present they mostly spend their MPLAD funds on getting ambulances, building schools or toilets. We want to raise the point that they can also spend their funds on Road Safety. There is no mechanism to support a family which loses a member due to poor road conditions. There are no rehabs for people who lose limbs or get paralysed,” says Vinod Kanumala of Indian Federation of Road Safety.