Chandigarh, December 25: The report on ‘Road Safety Analysis and Identification of Accident Black Spots’ prepared under Tandrust Punjab Mission jointly by the Project Punjab Vision Zero Accident team and the Traffic Wing of Punjab Police, has prompted the National Highways Authority of India(NHAI) to initiate immediate remedial measures on twenty highly accident prone spots, informed KS Pannu, Director, Tandrust Punjab Mission.
According to Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH), Government of India, road accident blackspot on National Highways is a road stretch of about 500m in length in which either 5 road accidents (involving fatalities/grievous injuries) took place during last three calendar years or 10 fatalities took place during last three calendar years, said he.
Pannu said that the detailed road accident analysis revealed that a total of 92 accidental black spots existed on the 175km long stretch of NH-44 falling in Punjab. Based upon the last three years (2016-2018) road accidental cases reported, a total 880 people lost their lives, 525 got seriously injured, and 183 got minor injuries in 1077 cases registered on the entire stretch of the NH-44 within the state of Punjab. Moreover, out of total 880 road accidental deaths, 644 accidental deaths (73%) were reported on these 92 accidental black spots falling on NH-44.
He said that this analysis reveals that about 40 km of the road stretch out of entire 175km length of NH-44 has some serious geometric design errors and requires immediate geometric improvement, especially in the areas where NH-44 crosses urban limits.
Mission Director informed as per the study of Planning Commission of India as a base study (2013), as per the net present value, the total cost of social-economic loss occurred in Punjab due to various road accidents on NH-44 amounts to rupees 933 Crores for the past three years, i.e.Rs. 85 Lakh per day.
This called for immediate flagging of the issue to the NHAI, said Pannu and added that based on the State feedback, NHAI prioritized the black spots according to the number of fatalities reported and has commenced the remedial work on the identified spots by inviting the tenders for the rectification work.
He said that elimination / minimization of black spots is targeted under Tandrust Punjab Mission. But, fatalities take place repeatedly or get created on the road network due to various reasons like commissions and omissions in the developmental projects , changes in the road side environment , changes in developmental scenario in the region, unplanned developments /unauthorized constructions on/ near the roads like advertisement boards, poles, statues, buildings, trees, bushes etc, therefore rectifying the black spots is a continuous process.
We will seriously, systematically and continuously carry out the work of identifying and rectifying the road accident black spots and will also monitor the effectiveness of remedial measures for the black spots, said Pannu.
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