New Delhi: Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Thursday presented the statistics on road accidents in India, attending the Lok Sabha session; he said that as many as 1.46 lakh people lost their lives in 4.60 lakh road accidents across the country in the year 2017. Mr Gadkari also underlined the fact that a majority of the road accidents involved two-wheelers where the victims were not wearing helmets. He also asked all the parties to cooperate in clearing Road Transport and Safety Bill in Parliament. The bill was passed by all the members of Lok Sabha on April 10, 2017 and is pending with Rajya Sabha for approval.
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“If the law had been approved by Parliament, the deaths on Indian roads could have been lower,” said Mr Gadkari during Lok Sabha Question Hour.
Highlighting the statistics of the year 2016, the minister said the detailed age profile of road accidents victims in 2016 reveals that the most effected age group was 18-45 years, they together accounted for 68.6 percent (1,03,409 persons) of road accident fatalities.
Mr Gadkari also highlighted various steps that have been taken by the ministry of road transport and highways like establishing road safety information database, encouraging safer road infrastructure including an application of intelligent transport, enforcement of safety laws, along with measures that were taken by the ministry to promote awareness. He added,
The government has constituted the national road safety council as the apex body to take policy decisions in matters of road safety. The ministry has also requested all states and UTs to set up state road safety council and district road safety committee and hold their meetings regularly.
Mr Gadkari earlier has also said that a committee has been formed by the ministry of roads and transport and they have suggested a ban on the production of substandard helmets. This has been done to ensure that people wear only good quality helmets. He also said that the ministry has been asking manufacturers to innovate on designs and come up with light helmets that are not very expensive and that work well in tropical climate, so that majority of people can use better quality helmets in India.
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