Govt begins consultations with sector experts on road safety standards

Safety index for highways on the cards; key focus is on four Es--engineering, education, enforcement and emergency care

The government is likely to come up with a road safety index for highways as it begins consultations with experts from the road and highways sector. In order to formulate uniform road safety standards, the department of consumer affairs along with Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) on Monday held a meeting with various stakeholders to have detailed deliberations, according to government sources.

During the meeting, representatives from the ministry of consumer affairs, ministry of road transport and highways, BIS, IIT Delhi, NHAI, and World Bank were also present.

A high-level committee under the standards authority, consisting of industry representatives will establish a national road safety index for national highways, expressways, state highways and other district roads, specifying safety benchmarks. BIS will also help road safety organisations in confirmatory assessments and quality checks.

“Keeping in mind the road safety aspects, the government's key focus is on 4 Es which include engineering, education, enforcement and emergency care,” said one of the sources aware of the developments.

With the rising number of vehicles and rapid expansion of the road network, India is witnessing a high number of road accidents. In order to address this issue, the government has taken a number of steps, including

public awareness, engineering (both of roads and vehicles), enforcement and emergency care.

Recently, the government also directed road safety audits of all highways in the next three months, including the under-construction highways and even the highways in design stages.

Apart from Indian Road Congress’ codes for engineering aspects, India does not have an overall uniform standards for enforcement and emergency care for road safety.

“At present, authorities check only the engineering aspect but we are going to come up with standards to define the clauses necessary for overall road safety,” said one of the officials.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the number of traffic accidents in the country rose from 368,828 in 2020 to 422,659 in 2021. Of these, 403,116 were road accidents, 17,993 railway accidents, and 1,550 railway crossing accidents.

The fatalities in road accidents have increased by 16.8 per cent, from 133,201 in 2020 to 155,622 in 2021, stated the NCRB report.

The rising number of road accidents has been a cause of concern for the government.

Last week, Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, said in a written reply to Lok Sabha that a total of 153,000 fatalities were reported due to road accidents in 2021. The year-wise data of the number of fatalities show the total deaths rising to 153,000 in 2021, up from 131,000 in 2020, and 151,000 in 2019.