Soon, ban on liquor shops on highways

Soon, you may not see liquor shops along highways across the country. In an attempt to tackle the rising number of accidents on highways, the Road Transport & Highways Ministry is planning to ban liquor shops along the state and national highways.

Soon, you may not see liquor shops along highways across the country. In an attempt to tackle the rising number of accidents on highways, the Road Transport & Highways Ministry is planning to ban liquor shops along the state and national highways.

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At least one road accident death is reported every four minutes in India. Last year, as many as 1.6 lakh people were killed in road mishaps across the country. Drunk driving on highways, according to experts, is one of the major causes of accidents.

The ministry is also planning to write to the state governments on the issue. "Ultimately, we will have to enforce it only with the state government's support," said a ministry official.

This is just one among a host of measures that has been proposed by the road ministry. These proposals came up in a review meeting chaired by Jitin Prasada, MoS, Road Transport & Highways on Friday. The ministry will also carry out a survey to identify accident prone stretches on the highways.

"We are looking at a host of measures to ensure that less people lose their lives in road accidents. It is a challenging task," said Prasada.

There is also a plan to build railings and foot overbridges on certain stretches and set up a round-the-clock call centre to monitor traffic movement on highways.