Bhubaneswar: Odisha recorded 4,738 cases of road accident deaths in 2020, of which 80 per cent accident victims did not wear helmets, state Transport Minister Padmanabha Behera informed at State-Level Road Safety Council meeting Thursday afternoon.
Moreover, around 5,000 people suffered injuries in road accidents, data shared by the state Transport department revealed. Deaths caused due to road mishaps in Odisha were much ahead of the national average in 2020, the Minister Behera added.
Out of 100 deaths in the state, 48 people died due to road accidents as compared to 36 deaths across the country.
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However, the death rate reflected a decline in 2020 as compared to the figure of 2019. This was due to imposition of lockdowns and shutdowns necessitated by Covid-19 outbreak. The year 2020 registered an 11 per cent decline.
Cases of more deaths caused due to road mishaps were reported from Jajpur, Mayurbhanj, Sundargarh, Keonjhar, Angul, Dhenkanal, Balasore, Ganjam, Cuttack and Khurda districts.
Motorcyclists account for 53 per cent of the total deaths. Odisha was placed at 12th position in the country in terms of road accidents.
According to an official source, road mishaps claimed a total of 5,315 lives in 2018, the number which increased to 5,333 in 2019. In 2020, as many as 4,738 people lost their lives to road mishaps.
Bhubaneswar alone had reported 51 accidents, claiming 12 lives in 2020. However, the number increased in 2021 with the death of at least 149 people.
As per a statistics of NCRB and the state government, at least 27 road mishaps occur in Odisha every day, killing an average of 13 people.
“As many as 532 accident related cases were registered by November 30 this year in Bhubaneswar Urban Police District (UPD) and 149 people lost their lives,” DCP Umashankar Das informed.
It is pertinent to mention, a tragic road mishap on NH-55 that took place Thursday afternoon, killing a motorcyclist, speaks a volume of poor condition of the road. A motorcyclist died on the spot and another has been struggling for life at a local hospital.
The two motorcycle-borne youths were heading from Manguli Square towards Choudwar in Cuttack. At around 11.00am, when they were trying to overtake a truck while negotiating with a pothole, the vehicle skidded resulting in being crushed under a truck.
Local residents blamed the tardy pace of an ongoing expansion work on NH-55 for the fatal road mishap.
Protesting over deplorable condition of the national highway, Odisha Private Bus Owners’ Association Thursday put the buses off the road from 6.00am to 12 midnight.
A patch of the national highway stretching from Manguli Square in Cuttack district up to Angul town has turned into a death-trap for over three years due to a double-laning work which is still underway.
The road double-laning work is going on at a snail’s pace and a number of large crates have developed in the meanwhile. As a result, accidents take place frequently causing loss of life and property.
Similarly, the buses plying to Dhenkanal, Talcher and Angul on the national highway have been facing utter difficulties.
PNN
