Manipur Information Centre
New Delhi, May 2: Keeping in view the grim road safety scenario in the country and pressing needs to improve the ease of transport; Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MORTH) constituted a Group of Ministers to deliberate on the issues facing the transport sector in the country. The Group of Ministers was mandated to examine the best practices in the road transport sector with a view to improve safety and mobility and to suggest actionable measures for implementation.
In the first meeting of the Group of Ministers held on Friday last at Indian Habitat Centre here under the chairmanship of Yoonus Khan, Minister for Public Works Department and Transport, Government of Rajasthan; the Transport Minster of Manipur Dr Kh. Ratan Kumar placed the information on various measures taken up in Manipur to improve road safety and ease of transport.
He said that the State Level Road Safety Council and District Level Road Safety Committees were constituted under the Chairmanships of the Transport Minister and the District Magistrates concerned respectively in the year 2006. The last meeting of the State Level council was held on September 29 last year to monitor the road safety measures in Manipur.
The Minister also stated that the High Level Committee on road Safety Measures was constituted under the Chairmanship of the Chief Secretary, Manipur in December 2013 and its last meeting was held February 25 last year. The Sub Committee on Black Spots was also constituted under the Administrative Secretary of Transport in May 2015 and started its function with holding meetings followed by field visits for identification, rectification and maintenance of the roads.
He said that the State Road Safety Fund was also created and started various activities like observation of Road Safety weeks and organization of training programmes in collaboration of Central Institute of Road Transport, Pune on Road Safety Measures.
The Minister stated that as per guidelines of the Supreme Court of India, the Government of Manipur issued gazette notification in September 2015 with various conditions including seating capacity, colour code and other norms.
He informed the meeting that the vehicle population of Manipur as on March 2016 was 2,78,514. Whereas the population as on March 2016 was being compiled and the projected figure might slightly cross figure of three lakh. The annual percentage rise was about 10.6 percent which was quite alarming.
In an average, two accidents occurred in a day and one person was killed in every two days in Manipur, the Minister said. He added, “Another good sign is that during the last five years, numbers of accidents as well as fatal injuries including death are found decreasing with radical increase in minor injuries”.
With rapidly increasing motorization, India is facing an increasing burden of Road Traffic injuries and fatalities. The provisional data for Calendar year for 2015 shows a figure of 146,000 deaths as compared to around 1,38,000 deaths in the year 2014. The number of people who are seriously injured and disabled is even higher in the range of 25 to 26 lakhs. India is signatory to the Brasilia declaration and is committed to reduce the number of road crash fatality by 50 percent by the year 2020.
