Bhubaneswar: Between April and June end, the period when there was a COVID-19-induced lockdown across the state, Odisha reported as many as 1,524 road accidents that claimed 707 lives and left 4,268 injured.
According to a source, there were a total of 5,802 road accidents reported between January 2019 and June. The corresponding period in the year 2020 witnessed 4,404 road mishaps.
It was assumed that the period between April 2020 and June end, there would have been far less number of accidents owing to lockdown that began from March 2020 and there was hardly any vehicular movement on the roads.
But the assumption was proved wrong and the period from April to June end witnessed 1,524 road accidents wherein 707 people lost their lives and 4,268 others suffered injuries. The state reported 2,742 accidents between the period from April 2019 till June end, resulting in 1,440 deaths.
However, the current year’s more than 700 deaths that were too during the lockdown period has raised many questions over the state government’s inability to check accidents happening on roads.
In 2019, 68.98 per cent of the total number of accidents was due to speed driving. While 9.55 per cent accounted for drunk driving, 9.40 per cent accidents occurred due to wrong driving, 0.88 per cent for jumping red signal, 4. 45 per cent for driving while speaking on mobile phones and the rest 6.64 per cent for some other reasons.
The state government’s failure in bringing down the accidents can be attributed to various reasons. In 2017, a committee of the Supreme Court had directed the state government to introduce highway patrolling. But it is yet to be launched in the state.
The government had made a plan for round the clock patrolling on five highways. For this Rs 10 crore were diverted from the Road Safety Fund of the Transport Department to the House Department so that required machinery and vehicles could have been bought.
But nothing much was done in this regard and the fund was lying unspent for a long period.
Since there were no enough policemen to carry on highway patrolling, a meeting was convened and it was decided that the retired policemen would be appointed. Even after an advertisement was published in this regard, none applied for the same.
Another meeting was convened two months ago and all the issues were discussed in that meeting. It was then decided that private vehicles would be hired for 24-hour patrolling. Similarly, no vehicle owner agreed to engage their vehicles for Rs 20,000 a month.
It has now been fixed at Rs 72,000 a month. It is also learnt that a decision has been taken to rope in retired defence personnel.
But given the fact that 2017 decisions are yet to be implemented, it is being questioned whether the decisions taken recently are really going to be implemented.
When contacted, Crime Branch ADG Soumendra Priyadarshi said advertisements were published for staff recruitment two days back. Soon, hired vehicles would be engaged. Coronavirus pandemic has delayed the process, he added.
The central government is learnt to be launching a ‘Dail 112’ system. This system is called as Integrated Emergency Response System. Health department, Fire department and Police department are to be incorporated in this system. By dialling this number, people can get ambulance, fire service and PCR service.
Meanwhile, Priyadarshi suggested that this system will take some more time for implementation.
PNN