Even as the number of vehicular accidents in the state is rising sharply, the transport department will draw up a project report on road safety and submit it to the World Bank for getting funding. Department officials have been proposing several changes in the existing system that would be covered in the project.
"Road safety is the department's prime concern and several changes have been made in this regard. A project report on road safety will soon be submitted to the World Bank. As part of this project CCTV cameras will be installed on certain roads," said transport minister GS Bali while interacting with reporters after attending a meeting of the state road safety council last Tuesday.
He said a committee had been set under the chairmanship of the additional transport and education chief secretaries to take a final call on including road safety lessons in the school syllabus.
"At its first meeting in six years, the council members suggested ways to check road accidents, including constructing a functional parapet. In some cases it has been observed these parapets were not installed properly and there was no deep footing. The council has also recommended that provision of pedestrian paths along roads should be made mandatory. Several road accidents have occurred due to the absence of such paths. The council has also proposed roads should be designed according to the traffic plying on them. At different places there is a varying amount of pressure on roads, so the PWD should keep this in mind and not apply the same parameters everywhere," Bali said.
He added the traffic police, equipped with three speed interceptors that were flagged off last month, had fined 155 vehicles and collected fines of over Rs 2.5 lakh. "At present all the RTOs do not have speed interceptors to check speeding vehicles," he noted.
{{/usCountry}}He added the traffic police, equipped with three speed interceptors that were flagged off last month, had fined 155 vehicles and collected fines of over Rs 2.5 lakh. "At present all the RTOs do not have speed interceptors to check speeding vehicles," he noted.
{{/usCountry}}Following the National Green Tribunal's directive to the state government to ply only CNG vehicles on the Rohtang pass, Bali said HRTC would ply CNG buses but there was no availability of CNG or LPG in Himachal Pradesh. "I will urge the central government to provide supply of CNG so that the NGT order can be complied with," he added.