E-Paper
In UP, road mishaps claim more lives every year than Covid did in 3 years: CM
We can easily bring down road accidents below the national average by spreading awareness and strictly enforcing road safety rules, says Yogi Adityanath
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday noted that road safety had become a major challenge in Uttar Pradesh with rising accidents and fatalities and warned that negligence in this regard would not be tolerated. “Road accidents claim more lives in a year than Covid did in three years in the state,” he said, stressing that ensuring safe travel for every road user was the legal and moral responsibility of the authorities.
He was speaking at an event here where he inaugurated new transport services and witnessed the signing of a road safety MoU between the transport department and IIT-Kharagpur. A strategic partnership will help identify accident hotspots, improve speed management, and implement safer road corridors with measurable results.
The recent ‘Road Accidents in India 2023’ report shows that Uttar Pradesh lost 23,652 lives in 2023 —the highest in India. Yogi said both the Centre and the Supreme Court had repeatedly flagged concerns over road safety, but lack of awareness among road users and poor coordination between agencies hindered progress. “We can easily bring down road accidents below the national average by spreading awareness and strictly enforcing road safety rules,” he added.
The CM said IIT-Kharagpur could help the state adopt technology-based solutions to reduce accidents and fatalities. He also directed officials to scrap government vehicles that had outlived their utility and urged people to avail benefits under the scrappage policy to dispose of old vehicles. He emphasised promoting electric buses.
Highlighting the employment potential of the sector, Yogi said transport and urban development alone could generate three lakh jobs by connecting villages and cities through bus services. He asked the UP State Road Transport Corporation to set an example by offering world-class buses and bus stations.
The CM launched several new initiatives on the occasion, including the rollout of various RTO services through common service centres (CSCs), distribution of certificates to investors of four vehicle scrapping centres and four automated testing centres.
Other key launches included a new international driving licence booklet, a simplified transport helpline (149) and a digital bus tracking app. Appointment letters were also handed over to three women conductors, part of nearly 2,000 recruited under the National Rural Livelihood Mission.
Yogi also flagged off 400 new BS-VI standard buses, including double-decker electric, electric and CNG variants, to strengthen public transport and curb vehicular pollution in Uttar Pradesh. All the new buses comply with Bharat Stage-VI (BS-VI) emission norms and are significantly less polluting than BS-IV vehicles. Equipped with special filters, they can block 80 to 90% of fine particulate matter such as PM 2.5, thereby contributing to improved air quality.
Minister of state for transport Daya Shankar Singh and several senior officials from the transport department and the UPSRTC were also present at the event.
