Parliamentary Consultative Committee discusses road safety issue

The Parliamentary Consultative Committee has also discussed the issue of road safety. The central government has set a target for reducing road accident fatalities by 50 per cent by 2020 and has taken several steps to prevent road accidents. A National Road Safety Policy has been approved, which outlines various measures like promoting awareness, establishing a road safety information database, encouraging safer road infrastructure, enforcing safety laws, etc. The government has constituted the National Road Safety Council as the apex body to take policy decisions in the matter of road safety. The MoRTH has evolved a multi-pronged strategy to tackle the problem based on four Es – education, engineering (both of roads and vehicles), enforcement and emergency care. Safety audits are being taken up for selected stretches of national highways. Around 700 accident black spots have been identified and remedial steps are being taken at these spots. The threshold for four-laning of national highways has been reduced from 15,000 passenger car units to 10,000 and about 52,000 km of state highways are set to be converted into national highways. Model driving training institutes are planned to be set up in states and publicity campaigns are to be run in the print and electronic media.