TS plans to form road safety wing to curb accidents soon

The state government will soon form a separate department for road safety comprising officials from related departments. The Cabinet sub-committee on the subject at its first meeting on Monday directed officials to come up with a comprehensive report identifying which department would be the lead agency, and norms for coordination with other wings.

Cabinet sub-committee chairman and minister Tummala Nageswara Rao, and members including ministers K.T. Rama Rao, A. Indrakaran Reddy and Patnam Mahender Reddy held the first meeting with Director-General of Police M. Mahender Reddy, Director-General, road safety, T. Krishna Prasad and other officials.

The sub-committee preferred handing over the responsibility of the proposed department to roads and buildings with coordination of transport and law departments, traffic and law and order police, among others.

Mr Nageswara Rao said the government was spending `18,000 crore to develop roads. “With a few initiatives, we have reduced fatalities and accidents, From 7,219 fatalities in 22,811 accidents in 2016, the figure stands at 5,931 fatalities from 20,122 accidents so far this year.”

He said the state government was aiming at zero deaths in road accidents. “It was found that road engineering defects were leading to 20 per cent of accidents and the others were caused due to driver error,” he said.

Minister K.T. Rama Rao said all departments should work hard to reduce accidents and deaths. The sub-committee will meet again by the end of this month, ahead of the road safety week in January.

An official said the government had sanctioned 1,100 posts for the new department, including a deputy commissioner and an executive engineer. An official from the transport department said that once the new department is in place, a road safety team will also rush to accident sites and analyse the reasons for the mishap like road engineering faults, drivers’ error or victim’s mistake.

He said laws would be amended to allow this new parallel investigations. Vehicle manufacturers would be questioned if needed, he said.