Supreme Court Panel Raises Concern Over Road Safety In Telangana

Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre, Chairman, Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety on Road Safety (CoRS) has expressed concern over road accidents and related fatality rates in Telangana. He further stated that the accidents are more in countries like China, Japan, and Germany but the fatality rate is low whereas, in India, about 1.5 lakh people are dying every year due to road accidents. 

Justice Sapre visited Hyderabad on Saturday and convened a meeting to review the road safety interventions taken up by the Telangana state government. He informed that 91% of road-related fatalities in Telangana were due to over-speeding. He quoted that, "The road accident-related fatalities will be reduced to a large extent if wearing of helmets and fastening seat belts is ensured 100% and over-speeding is controlled." He directed the officials to take necessary measures so as to bring down the fatality rate.

The GHMC officials informed that a Comprehensive Road Maintenance Programme was taken up with Rs. 1,839 core for five years for pedestrian safety with increased length of footpaths, foot overbridges, attending to black spots on roads, undertaking permanent solution for waterlogging points on roads, junction improvement works at 33 locations, marking of zebra lines, rumble strips, keeping signboards and displaying traffic signs wherever necessary.

In the meeting held by CS, it was informed to the chairman that it was decided to draft the services of NIT-Warangal in assisting the lead agency with full-time domain experts and providing consultants, and to allocate ₹25 crore as a non-lapsable Road Safety Fund.

The police officials informed that about 6 lakh CCTV cameras have already been installed in Hyderbad and another 5 lakh were planned for installation on various arterial roads, all metro stations, MMTS stations/South Central Railway terminals, TSRTC bus terminals, bus shelters, and bus bays. HMDA established Trauma Care Centres equipped with advance life support ambulances on the entire Outer Ring Road stretch.

It was also informed that 10,728 driving licences have been suspended in 2021, including 6,298 due to drunk driving.

Transport Commission MRM Rao, Additional DGPs Jitender, and Sandeep Shandilya, GHMC Commissioner DS Lokesh Kumar, Project Director-ORR BM Santosh, Engineer-in-Chief (State Roads) P. Ravinder Rao, ENC (NH) I. Ganapathi Reddy and Director of Medical Education K. Ramesh Reddy were among those who attended.

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