Removing Roadblocks To Safety On Maharashtra Highways

Maharashtra, which contributes about 8% of deaths on national and state highways in the country annually, has issued directions to all local bodies to remove encroachments from the right of way on these arteries within two months. Dhabas, hotels, and commercial structures are to be removed, pursuant to the Supreme Court’s orders in a suo motu petition that followed ghastly highway crashes in Phalodi, Rajasthan, and Telangana in which nearly 40 people died. The forward-looking SC directions in April, which this newspaper welcomed, proposed a series of measures on highway safety, and the bureaucracy was asked to form a trackable patrolling system of police and transport personnel within 30 days. It would add to public confidence if the various mandates, starting with the patrolling mechanism, had actually been operationalised. It must be pointed out that even if encroachments are removed without fear or favour, there are significant administrative lacunae in reporting accident cases in Maharashtra. Research shows that the National Crime Records Bureau data for the state appear to be an undercount when compared with hospital and Maharashtra Emergency Medical Services records. What is more, this important database lacks information on the severity of injuries and the cause of accidents. Only what is measured can be corrected, and if accident records are incomplete, the prospect of introducing deep reforms will remain weak.

There are deplorably obvious lapses in the functioning of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). It took a court order for the NHAI to conduct a partial assessment of 693 km of highways and remove 361 illegal access points that cause serious accidents because motorists do not expect them to be there. The Authority has issued 1,403 notices to remove encroachments, illegal commercial access points, and median cuts, although these could have been prevented from coming up through a patrolling scheme. National highways are by no means free and charge motorists heavy tolls. It is incumbent on all connected agencies, the NHAI, the toll firms, state highways authorities, and police and medical departments to upgrade the system to the highest possible levels of reliability. The Phalodi crash aftermath provides some hope that there will be closer judicial scrutiny of the performance of government agencies in upholding safety and the right to life and in getting the accountability fixed. Trauma management facilities along highways with professional ambulance access are a neglected link in the chain. Sadly, successive governments have mostly paid lip service to highway safety, in spite of detailed recommendations made two decades ago by the Sundar Committee. The formation of a technically competent national road safety board is among the suggestions that are yet to see the light of day. Incremental approaches cannot make a deep impact on road safety in India, where the death toll in crashes tops 1.8 lakh a year and crippling injuries several times more.