India must aim for zerofatality highways

Only then will the high outlay on them bring about the expected economic growth

India is an infrastructure-hungry country. The Global Infrastructure Outlook Report, which was released in January, said that this appetite is likely to increase in the next 25 years, thanks to rising income levels and economic prosperity. The last Economic Survey had calculated that India would require around $4.5 trillion worth of investments till 2040 to develop the required infrastructure. This expansion of infrastructure and the exponential growth of vehicular traffic, however, have not been without its attendant problems. According to a first of its kind safety survey on national highways (NH), conducted by the World Bank and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), nearly 30% of the Delhi-Mumbai stretch of the Golden Quadrilateral and almost half of the Mumbai-Chennai stretch, both showpiece projects, are unsafe for car, bus and truck occupants, and even more so for two wheelers and pedestrians. This report is important because NHs, which comprise 2% of the country’s road network, account for almost 36% of road deaths.

How can India improve this situation? The United Nations identifies five pillars to ensure safe road systems: Road safety management, safer roads and mobility, aware road users, postcrash response and safer vehicles. This means that to improve safety, three major sectors have to be addressed. People (education and infrastructure); partners (car equipment manufacturers and suppliers); and government (the ministries and departments concerned). This is not an easy task but efforts by certain highway agencies are bearing fruit. Two years ago, the Mumbai-Pune Expressway notched up two deaths per kilometre of the stretch, resulting in a total of about 165 deaths in a year

But thanks to an audit, 15 types of errors were rectified by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation, which owns and runs the highway. Governments must take the World Bank and NHAI report seriously and take corrective measures to make the highways safe. Otherwise, the money spent on infrastructure will do little to promote economic growth.