Bhubaneswar: Following a series of deadly road mishaps in the last few months, the state government has asked all district collectors to revive the district road safety committees whose role so far has been limited to “observance of the National Road Safety Week” only.
Transport Commissioner Chandra Shekhar Kumar asked all collectors ensure proper implementation of road safety norms through the committees. “The committees will report to government about their performance every month,” a transport department official said.
As per the government direction the committees will formulate, regulate and implement road safety guidelines in their districts.
They will also suggest areas of research and development to improve road safety aspects including maintenance of accident statistics and their analysis.
The committees will also observe zero tolerance day every month and also identify potential black spots/ accident prone zones and take short term and medium term measures.
Besides, enforcement activities, implementation of district level road safety action plan, removal of liquor shops within 50 meters of Highways, removal of encroachment from pedestrian paths and providing land for construction of driving tracks will also be actively supervised by the panel.
The road safety committees at district level comprises of the collector as its chairperson and includes the SP, CDMO, executive engineers of road and
NH, and other concerned officials.
The move is part of the efforts to curtail road accidents which have resulted in severe criticism for the government.
According to National Crime Records Bureau data Orissa has the highest number of fatal road accidents.
State government statistics also suggest that around 15,000 people have died in road accidents in the last four years between 2012 and 2015.
The Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety headed by Justice KS Radhakrishnan has also come down heavily on the state government and described “the situation of road accidents and fatalities in Orissa as grim.”
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