Shimla: Himachal Pradesh state police which was on the receiving end during the Jai Ram Thakur led government for not being able to curb the hooch tragedy, illicit fire at a factory, unscientific and illegal mining from 2017 to 2022 informed during road safety meeting on Tuesday that it successfully contained number of road accidents and also curbed number of casualties.
Himachal Pradesh is known for highest road mishaps in the country, the state police made a claim of containing the number of casualties to 200 during the tenure of the last government.
The meeting was chaired by Public Works Minister Vikramaditya Singh in presence of Director General of police Sanjay Kundu and DIG ZH Zaidi among others at Vidhansabha Conference hall on Tuesday.
The Police Department made a detailed presentation based on the New York Police Department (NYPD) Model of deep analytics. He complimented the HP Police for making Road Safety a priority, as a result of which from years 2017 to 2022 road traffic accidents (RTAs) had reduced from 3114 to 2597, fatalities from 1203 to 1032 and injuries from 5452 to 4133.
The Minister said State has come a long way, but at the same time we need to cover a long distance towards road safety. He accepted that enough is needed to ensure road safety as it is poorer than national average, both in terms of population and vehicle numbers.
As against national average of 29.30 RTAs per lakh of population HP has a higher rate of 31.54. Similarly for deaths in RTAs per lakh of population HP had higher rate of 13.77 against national average of 10.93.
In terms of vehicles, RTAs per ten thousand vehicles was 15.10 for India while HP had a higher rate of 17.37. For deaths in RTAs per ten thousand vehicles, against the national average of 5.08, HP had a higher average of 6.93.
NYDP model of deep analytics of fatalities reveal that 23 per cent are caused due to head on collision, 22 pc run off road and 19 pc due to pedestrian hits.
Minister directed the officials to make provision of pedestrian infrastructure especially in plain areas (to prevent pedestrian hits), crash-barriers in hill areas (to prevent run-off accidents) and removal of black spots to prevent head on collisions and junction collisions. The first objective, Minister said was to bring the road safety norms of HP below the national average.
The second was to bring down the RTAs and deaths by 50 p c by the year 2030, as declared by the United Nations General Assembly as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
He stressed need for building safer roads, smarter enforcement, providing better resources & mobility to police and community participation. The Minister assured provision of adequate funds and resources to the Police Department.
The Minister stressed the need for encouraging community-based efforts and involving the community for road safety. To this end he assured the presence of PWD on social media.
Public Works Department, Police and World Bank organised the meeting with The Minister on the road safety.
During on going Budget session state assembly recently minister also informed that in the year 2022, 1032 people lost their lives and 2597 injured in the accidents.
Both the Department also identified 6,509 black spots in the state. Out of this, 5,350 dangerous points have been fixed.
Effortss are on to mend and repair the remaining left out black spots. Government also working on Intelligence Traffic Management System for road safety as separate traffic wing in top 7 accident prone districts in the state.
