Don’t skip joint inspection of highway accident spots, Odisha govt warns District Collectors

Express News Service
BHUBANESWAR: Concerned over rising highway fatalities, the Odisha authorities on Thursday directed all Collectors to conduct joint inspections of accident spots from August 1 and share the info with the Transport Department commonly with out fail.

The route got here after a lot of the districts had been discovered skipping joint inspections of accident spots in defiance of the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety that had confused on common inspections and remedial measures as prompt by the inquiry staff.

As per the directive of the apex court docket committee, the districts ought to conduct a joint inspection involving a technical staff comprising members from police, transport and highway engineering on the spots the place deadly and grievous damage accidents occurred.

Expressing concern over the non-compliance, Principal Secretary of Transport and Commerce Madhu Sudan Padhi has requested all Collectors to conduct joint inspections of accident spots and submit studies to the Transport Commissioner and Deputy Director (Road Safety) frequently.

A joint inspection format has been ready and shared with the districts. While a cellular app – Road Accident Management of Information System (RAMIS) for on-line submission of knowledge is being developed, the Collectors have been directed to submit the report via the division’s WhatsApp monitoring group until the web software is rolled out.

As instructed, the Road Safety Officer (Assistant MVI or junior MVI) of RTO workplace in each district will co-ordinate with police and highway engineer involved for conduct of joint inspection inside 48 hours of receipt of accident data and be certain that the report is submitted correctly.

The Director of State Crime Records Bureau is sharing the district sensible highway accident information on every day foundation within the highway security state monitoring group. For efficient co-ordination among the many officers involved at district stage, every RTO has been requested to kind a WhatsApp group involving IICs of all police stations, govt engineers, assistant govt engineers of all roads proudly owning authorities, mission administrators of NHAI and MVIs.

Warning that non-submission of the joint inspection report with none legitimate purpose shall be considered critically, Padhi has suggested districts to share a replica of the joint inspection report with the Crime Branch and Chief Engineers by the Police Officer and Road Engineer respectively.

There has been a gentle improve in highway deaths from 3931 in 2014 to 4738 in 2020, up by about 21 per cent. While the deaths got here down in 2020 as a result of lockdown following the Covid outbreak, 5333 individuals had died in highway accidents in 2019 and 5318 in 2018.

The development continued as highway accident fatalities rose from 1471 between January to April in 2020 to 1877 throughout the identical interval this yr with a rise of about 27.6 per cent.