Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 24: Government today admitted that State Road Development Corporation, which was constituted to give thrust to multifaceted growth in transport infrastructure, has yet not started its business.
The Corporation was constituted by the State Cabinet on May 30, 2012 to act as nodal agency for executing major roads and allied infrastructure projects.
“The Corporation is in the stage of being incorporated under the Companies Act of 1956 and has not, as yet, started business”, R&B Minister said in response to the question of CPM MLA, Mohd Yousaf Tarigami in the Legislative Assembly.
About the status of evolving a Corpus Fund for the payment of compensation to the road accident victims, the Minister said that the Corpus Fund/Passenger Welfare Fund was created by the Government vide Order No.39-TR of 2008 dated May 28, 2008 in order to introduce measures for welfare of the dependents/legal heirs of the persons killed/injured in road accidents due to negligence, machinery failure and road weather conditions.
“The contribution to the Corpus Fund is collected by the offices of Regional Transport Officers/ARTOs in their respective jurisdiction from the owners of the commercial vehicles at the time of registration and then credited into the Corpus Fund account”, he said, adding “the operation of Corpus Fund account was made applicable after framing of the Corpus Fund Rules, 2008 which came into effect with effect from April 1, 2010”.
He informed that Transport Department has collected an amount of Rs 241.38 lakh towards the Corpus Fund from the transporters and disbursed Rs 137 lakh amongst next of kin of the road accident victims at the rate of Rs 25000 for death, Rs 10,000 for serious injuries and Rs 5000 for minor injuries.
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