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Chief minister, TR Zeliang addressing the launch of road safety awareness campaign at Kohima on Monday. [/caption]
Kohima, Dec. 5: As per the national accident statistics, Nagaland has the least number of road crash fatalities besides Lakshadweep in the country. With 30 deaths in 54 reported accidents in 2015, rash driving, driving under influence and poor quality of roads were accounted as the major causes of accidents in the state.
This was informed by Technical Consultant for Road Safety and Enforcement, Veerender Singh Rathore at the launch of road safety awareness campaign at Kohima at De Oriental Grand toon Monday.
The programme was organised by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in collaboration with Association of State Road Transport Undertakings and Motor Vehicles Department, government of Nagaland.
Rathore, in his presentation, stated that in 2015 there were 500279 accidents and 146133 fatalities, and said since 2006 India has stoop top in the world on road accidents.
He also informed that in Nagaland there were 305 accidents in 2014with 81 fatalities and 74 injuries reported. However in 2015, it decreased to 54 cases of accidents, 30 fatalities and 74 injuries.
In urban areas, Rathore said there were 248 accidents in 2014 and 59 fatalities, 57 accidents and 22 fatalities in rural areas, while in 2015 there were 15 accidents and 9 fatalities in urban areas and 37 accidents and fatalities in rural areas.
The ministry, he said, has directed the states to bring down the fatality rate by the end of 2020 with a target of 3%, 9%, 11%, 12% and 15% in the next five years starting from 2016 to 2020.
Addressing the launching programme as the chief guest, chief minister, TR Zeliang said most of the road accident cases were due to carelessness or rash driving by the drivers and in certain cases, due to lack of awareness of road safety guidelines by road users, including the pedestrians.
He said in India alone, around 80,000 people were killed every year in road related accidents, which accounts for approximately 13% of the total fatality all over the world which made it more essential for road safety awareness campaign to be conducted more frequently in all seriousness.
Though the Road Safety Council and Committees were set up at the state and district levels, Zeliang said the state urgently require funds for implementing the much needed road safety measures.
He expressed hope that the campaign will go a long way in educating people on road safety measures and in reducing road accidents including the resultant deaths and injuries in the state.
Minister Transport, IT and Civil Aviation and chairman Nagaland Road Safety Authority P Paiwang Konyak who was also the chief host of the programme said statistics indicated that about 1.5 lakh people were killed in the country due to road accidents in 2015 alone and the number of road deaths in India was second only to China.
He said on average one road related death takes place every 4 minutes across the country and during 2010 to 2015, the rate showed alarming increase in fatalities caused by run-over accidents, other traffic accidents and serious injuries.
Even though road accident rate in Nagaland was not as high and alarming compared to the rest of the country, nonetheless Paiwang said the steep terrains of the land were more fatal in nature.
The minister said road safety has been put in place in 2013 under Nagaland Road Safety Act 2013 and road safety fund had been placed through the legislation wherein 50% from the compounding fees collected from the enforcement and 0.5% cess shall be collected as one time tax during the initial vehicle registration and shall be levied as cess from the fund.
He also informed that the road safety efforts were being generated by the department of Transport, Police, PWD (R&B) including the National Highways, Health & Family Welfare, Education and Information and Publicity etc.
To strengthen and make these efforts more effectives, Paiwang has called for a committed participation from the public and private organizations. Chief Minister officially declared the year long road safety campaign and led the members in taking the pledge. The programme saw participation of massed based organisations, various departments.
