Friday, 17 May, 2024
Samruddhi Mahamarg, known as Hindu Hrudaysamrat Balasaheb Thackeray Maharashtra Samruddhi Mahamarg, a 701-km-long expressway connecting Mumbai and Nagpur has recorded a total of 1,282 accidents since December 2022. Image Source: IANS
As compared to 2020, the number of road accidents rose by 17 percent in 2021, showing a rise in the rate of deaths per 1,000 vehicles in India.
Twelve people including a five year old were killed after the driver of a minibus lost control and slammed a stationary container truck on Samruddhi Mahamarg in the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district, better known as Aurangabad, in Maharashtra early on Sunday. The container truck's driver and two assistant inspectors from the Regional Transport Office (RTO) have been detained by the rural police in Aurangabad after it was discovered that the accident was caused by improper procedure when the container vehicle was stopped on the highway.
Mahesh Kalwaniya, Superintendent of Police, Aurangabad said, “The two RTO personnel had stopped the container truck around 10 kilometres before the Jambargaon toll plaza. They took the vehicle documents and Licence from the driver, identified as Brijeshkumar Kamalsingh Chandal, after which they asked him to go ahead, claiming that they shall stop him again.”
On Sunday, just after midnight, the collision happened in the Vaijapur region of the highway. At least 35 passengers were travelling in a private bus that was headed back to Nashik after visiting the Sailani Baba dargah in the Buldhana district.
Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Droupadi Murmu expressed their sorrow over the fatalities in the accident. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) announced in a post on X, formerly known as twitter that those injured will receive Rs 50,000 and that each deceased person's next of kin would receive an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF).
The deceased's surviving relatives would receive an ex-gratia payment of Rs. 5 lakh, while those who were injured would receive free medical care in the hospitals, according to Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. He also mandated an investigation into the incident.
Samruddhi Mahamarg, known as Hindu Hrudaysamrat Balasaheb Thackeray Maharashtra Samruddhi Mahamarg, a 701-km-long expressway connecting Mumbai and Nagpur has recorded a total of 1,282 accidents since December 2022. Around 135 people were killed in these accidents.
Anil Gaikwad, MD of Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) said, “The number of accidents on Samruddhi Mahamarg is fewer compared to other state highways. The expressway has no engineering defects, he added, in fact it is one the highways built with international road safety qualities.”
The accident in Maharashtra’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar has once again highlighted the rising number of road accidents in India. As compared to 2020, the number of road accidents rose by 17 percent in 2021, showing a rise in the rate of deaths per 1,000 vehicles in India. During the previous year 2020, country saw an unprecedented decrease in accidents, fatalities and injuries. This was due to the unusual outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and resultant stringent nation-wide lockdown particularly during March-April, 2020 followed by gradual unlocking and phasing out of the containment measures.
Source: Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
In 2021, around 1,53,972 people were killed in road accident cases. Around 4.12 lakh road accidents were reported - up from 3.54 lakh in 2020. Over half of all fatalities, 87,000 were caused by speeding, while 42,000 were blamed on reckless and unsafe driving. The number of people killed in car crashes has risen by 16.8 percent. (From 1,33,201 in 2020 to 1,55,622 in 2021). According to observations, the number of fatalities per 1,000 cars rose from 0.45 in 2020 to 0.53 in 2021.
During 2021 a total of 4,12,432 accidents were recorded, of which 1,42,163 (34.5 percent) were fatal accidents, 2,46,027 (59.7 percent) were injury (minor and grievous) causing accidents. Among injury causing accidents, 1,26,394 (30.6 percent) were grievous and 1,19,633 (29 percent) were minor injury causing accidents
Two-wheelers were involved in the most fatal road accidents in 2021 (69,240 fatalities), making up 44.5 percent of all deaths on the road, followed by cars (23,531 fatalities; 15.1 percent) and trucks/lorries (14,622 fatalities; 9.4 percent). The majority of two-wheeler-related killings were reported in Tamil Nadu (8,259 fatalities) and Uttar Pradesh (7,429 fatalities), accounting for 11.9 percent and 10.3 percent of all two-wheeler-related fatalities, respectively. However, there were a lot fewer accidents in 2021 as compared to 2019, when there were 4.37 lakh reported accidents and 1.54 lakh fatalities.
Two-wheelers (58,129 fatalities) contributed 43.6 percent of all fatal road accidents in 2020, followed by cars (17,538 fatalities) (13.2 percent) and trucks/lorries (16,993 fatalities) (12.8 percent). Between 2020 and 2021, Tamil Nadu reported the highest increase in the number of traffic accident cases (from 46,443 to 57,090), followed by Madhya Pradesh (from 43,360 to 49,493) and Uttar Pradesh (from 30,593 to 36,509). In 2018, around 1,52,780 people lost their lives in road accidents, out of 4,45,500 lakh accidents were reported.
The government has been taking several steps to prevent the road accidents. One of the steps was an amendment in the Motor Vehicle Act in 2019. The Motor Vehicle Amendment Act, 2019 hikes the penalties for traffic violations, defective vehicles, juvenile driving, etc. It calls for the creation of a Motor Vehicle Accident Fund, which would require all Indian road users to carry insurance coverage for certain types of accidents.
In spite of certain measures and steps taken by the government to prevent accidents, the number of road accidents in India continue to rise every year claiming more and more number of lives.
