Thane Traffic Police to recognise Good Samaritans for timely help in road accidents

Thane Traffic Police have decided to implement the Standard Operating Procedures to recognise a Good Samaritan by rewarding and felicitating him if he helped save a life in any road accidents

The Thane Traffic Police have decided to implement the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to recognise a Good Samaritan by rewarding and felicitating him if he helped save a life in any road accident.

Thane Traffic Police will start recognising the efforts of Good Samaritans for their timely help in road accidents. (HT FILE PHOTO)

This idea was first initiated by the Centre and is now implemented in the Thane commissionerate. According to officials, road accidents claim more than two lakh lives in India alone every year and contributed to the economic loss of approximately 3% of the GDP.

Seventeen people die every hour on Indian roads.

As per the reports, nearly 50% of the road fatalities could have been avoided had medical attention been provided within the first hour of the mishap.

Balasaheb Patil, DCP traffic, said, “Most of the people ignore the accidents and hesitate to help the injured due to the legal process that they have to follow and for the fear of police action. To remove all these constraints and to encourage them to help the injured immediately is the main aim of the SOP. We have sent these guidelines to all the police officials of the commissionerate and have asked to implement it on a regular basis.”

As per this initiative, if any person helped the injured person in an accident within the golden hours and admitted him to hospital, also if the injured went through some surgery or admitted in the hospital for three days of suffered a spinal cord injury, then the Good Samaritan will get ₹5,000 with a certificate as an appreciation award for helping the injured.

In the second case, if the Good Samaritan helped save more than two persons in one accident, then he will be awarded ₹5,000 with a certificate.

If there are more than one Good Samaritans who helped the injured, then the amount of award will get divided. Apart from this, the names of 10 Good Samaritans who helped the most will be sent for national award and the winner would get ₹1 lakh.

To get the certificate, the hospital authority and police should follow some procedures to add the name of the Good Samaritan, mention his work and give him receipt and the same should be forwarded to the Collector’s office for further process.