New Delhi: It is celebration time for the newest state of India, Telangana, as number of road accidents and road accident deaths and injuries witnessed a decline in 2017 for the first time since 2014, when the state was formed. A dip of one and a half per cent in road accidents may seem marginal but given that the state so far had only seen increase in the instances of road accidents, the decrease witnessed in 2017 is being seen as an achievement for transport department of Telangana. In its first year as a state, Telangana saw 20,078 road accidents, which went up to 21,252 in 2015, a growth of 5.84 per cent. In 2016, the number of accidents went up to 22,811 another rise of 7.33 per cent. In terms of deaths caused due to accidents, 2014 witnessed nearly 7,000 (6,906) deaths which crossed the 7000 mark (7,110) in 2015 and further went up to 7,219 in 2016.
With a population of over 3.5 crore people, managing traffic and road accidents can get a tad difficult, but with a few preventive measures, regular awareness and enforcement programmes, the state managed to bring down the number of road accidents by 1.47 per cent to 22,475 and the number of road accidents deaths came down by 8.64 per cent to below 7,000 mark to 6,595.
Speaking to NDTV, Joint Transport Commissioner, C. Ramesh, explained the reason behind the decline in road fatalities. He said,
The combination of awareness programmes, regular enforcement of law has worked well in our favour. Engineering measures are being taken by the engineering department, which has also helped in the reduction of road accidents and road fatalities.
As per the information provided by the state transport department, a total of 168 black spots were identified, 25 on National Highways, further the National Highways Authority of India identified 44 black spots and 94 on the State Roads. Out of all this, 75 have been rectified.
Talking about the future plans, C. Ramesh said,
Just like the central government, our aim is also to reduce road accidents by 50 per cent by the year 2020. The target is big, it looks like unachievable, but we have taken the challenge and we are aiming for that.
Hyderabad, the capital city of Telangana has also witnessed a sharp decline in both road accidents and deaths. While in 2016, 405 people lost their lives in 2,535 road accidents, in 2017 the number of deaths came down by 23 percent to 311 and road accidents were down to 2,367 a drop of 6.62 percent.
Apart from on ground awareness pogrammes, we used mass media for the campaign. We have made five animated short films which are being shown in different cinema halls in the state. Apart from this, social media is also being exploited said, C. Ramesh.
On April 27, Hyderabad Traffic Police also released a couple of short films to drive home the message of road safety. Through short films, the department gave twist to a simple message of following basic road safety rules like wear a helmet and follow traffic signals. The Hyderabad Traffic Police’s twitter handle is full of witty tweets, riddles, and interesting videos which are being received well by the netizens.
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