Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Feb 18: Taking serious note of frequent accidents on the roads including the National Highways and remote areas, Governor N N Vohra today constituted a high level Committee headed by Chief Secretary BR Sharma and comprising top officers of various Departments to suggest measures to prevent the tragedies on roads and ensure effective traffic management in place.
Holding a special and high level review of the accidents on which the Governor had been voicing concern for past quite sometimes even when the elected Government was in place, Vohra called upon the Panel to go into all aspects of accidents and suggest concrete and effective measures to prevent them in future.
Top officers of civil and police administration, Traffic Police, Transport Department, Health Department, National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), Project Beacon and others were present in the meeting that lasted two hours in which the Governor also sought an Action Taken Report (ATR) on previous accidents, traffic management and holding the agencies accountable for the accidents in future as he voiced concern over loss of lives in frequent road mishaps.
Advisor to Governor Parvez Dewan, Chief Secretary BR Sharma, Financial Commissioner (Planning and Development Department) BB Vyas, Principal Secretary to Governor PK Tripathi, Home Secretary R K Goyal, Director General of Police K Rajendra, Secretary Transport Kifayat Hussain Rizvi, representative of Secretary Health and Medical Education Department, Project Director NHAI RP Singh, Divisional Commissioner, Jammu, Pawan Kotwal, IGP Traffic Viplav Kumar, Transport Commissioner, RTO Jammu Ashwani Sharma and MD SRTC among others were present in the meeting while the Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir joined through video conferencing.
Official sources told the Excelsior that the Governor set up high level Committee headed by Chief Secretary BR Sharma and comprising the DGP, the Administrative Secretaries of Home, Finance, Housing & Urban Development, Works, Transport and Health, the Divisional Commissioners, the IGP Traffic and Transport Commissioner to go into the reasons behind the previous accidents and come out with detailed report of taking effective and concrete measures to prevent accidents and avoidable deaths on the roads.
The Committee will be set up by February 23 and the Chief Secretary will finalize the Road Safety Action Plan within 20 days.
The Executive or Legislative approval will be accorded by March 15.
According to sources, the Governor said the Committee should suggest both short term and long term measures immediately that can be taken to ensure that the accidents that can be easily avoidable didn’t occur in any part of the State.
Referring to a number of accidents in remote areas due to over-loading, negligent driving, lack of maintenance of roads and other reasons, which have taken a heavy toll on the people’s lives, Vohra categorically told the administration to ensure that such accidents don’t occur in future and, if any such accident takes place, the officers/officials are held accountable.
He called for result-oriented measures to check the accidents and implementation of the report prepared by the high powered Committee to prevent their occurrence.
According to sources, the Governor voiced concern over traffic management and cited instances of patients getting late in reaching hospitals or people missing flights and trains while getting trapped in the traffic jams. He said the authorities must put traffic management in place to control the traffic jams to maximum possible extent for hassle-free movement of the commuters.
He also asked the NHAI and Beacon officials to ensure widening of the Highways and major roads under their jurisdiction for easy and jam-free vehicular movement. The officials of the Central agencies assured the Governor that they were taking best possible measures to make highways and other major roads smooth for traffic by doing the repair work and widen them, wherever possible.
The Governor invited suggestions from officers of different departments present in the meeting for immediate implementation.
Re-organization of Transport Department, extra manpower for Traffic Police, increasing penalty for violation of Traffic laws and stringent action for violating the Traffic rules figured in the meeting.
Sources said there was consensus on increasing penalty for traffic violations and suspending licenses to set the things right. They added that the Governor would call another meeting to review road safety measures once the high powered Committee submits its report.
An official handout said the Governor expressed serious concern that, on an average, there are over 6000 road accidents in J&K which result in around 1000 innocent persons being killed, which is almost double the national average, and 8000 getting injured every year.
The Governor recalled the high level meeting held by him on 14th February, 2015 and regretted that the decisions taken had not been progressed in the past one year. He reiterated his directions to carry out improvements in the road architecture, duly vetted by the Design Directorate, based on the Safety Audit carried out for the identification of “black spots”.
The Governor directed that every concerned agency should strictly enforce and sternly deal with all cases of overloading and other traffic violations to ensure that no unfit vehicle is allowed to ply on the road under any circumstances. Side by side no unqualified and untested person should be allowed to drive any personal, transport or commercial vehicle.
The Governor was informed that the meeting of Jammu and Kashmir State Road Safety Council was held last week and the meetings of the District Road Safety Committees are also being held regularly. The draft State Road Safety Policy, which was recently approved, has already been placed in the public domain for inviting comments from stake holders and the general public by February 29.
The Governor directed that the proposals regarding increase in the existing scale of fines and penalties for traffic violations, enhancement of fees and taxes, and the re-organization of Motor Vehicle Department should be brought up before the State Administrative Council to be held on February 25.
The Governor also directed to expedite completion of computerization of entire data base and provision of online services for driving license, registration certificates, permits, fitness certificates etc. in all the districts within 200 days w.e.f. 1st March 2016. The Governor directed the Home Secretary to expedite proposals for strengthening Traffic Police by rationalizing of deployment of existing manpower.
The Governor further directed that there should be no further delay in establishment of Institute ofDriving Training and Research (ITDR) and Inspection and Certification Centre (ICC) both at Jammu andSrinagar. In addition to 10 Trauma Care Centers already made functional by the Health Department from within its existing resources the network of Trauma Care Health facilities located along the National and State Highways will be completed by June 30.
The Action Plan for Intelligent Transport System like traffic signals, CCTV Cameras etc. will be expedited under the AMRUT scheme in the urban areas. A special drive will be launched for the removal of encroachments and clear all roads and footpaths for the smooth movement of vehicles and pedestrians.
The Governor directed that decisions already taken in the 3rd State Road Safety Council be implemented in a time bound manner. Laying special emphasis on active involvement of all stakeholders in creating awareness about Road Safety, campaigns should be conducted every month by involving NCC,NSS, Home Guards, Scouts & Guides and volunteers. Special attention must be focused on pedestrians by providing clear footpaths, adequate number of Zebra Crossings and under passes and over bridges built on all major roads and highways.
The Governor particularly urged the DGP, IGP Traffic and Transport Commissioner to enforce stringent measures to check overloading of transport vehicles, check over speeding and ensure that only trained drivers are allowed to ply buses and trucks on the accident prone roads, particularly in the difficult stretches in the hilly areas.
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