Bhubanaeswar: Worried over the rise in the number of accidents on the national highways, the state transport department has asked the home department to direct the police to increase patrolling on the national highways.
A senior official of the state transport department said that the number of accidents could be reduced only through effective intervention from the police and the regional transport office.
In its letter to the home department, the transport department urged it to fill up vacancies required for the patrolling duty especially on the Jaleswar-Icchapuram, Bhubaneswar-Puri, Sambalpur-Sohelam, Manguli-Sambalpur and Sambalpur-Rourkela routes. These routes are witnessing a number of accidents over the last few months. Last year, 10 people were killed and two injured in a dreadful head-on collision between a truck and a passenger vehicle on National Highway-55 near Bhawanipali in Sambalpur district. As per reports, more than one-third of the accidents take place on national highways.
In 2017, as many as 4,790 people died in road accidents and more than 11,000 had suffered grievous injury. The road accident fatality rate is higher in the state compared to the national figure. In every 100 accidents, about 46 persons are killed in the state, whereas the national average is 29. Some 78 per cent of people killed in road accidents. Most of them are in the 15-45 year age groups and many of them are the bread-earners of their families.
Odisha is one of the five states along with Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Chhattisgarh to have recorded increase in fatalities during 2017, whereas the other parts of the country have actually reduced road accident fatalities around the same time.
Although the government has taken a number of steps, the fatalities increased by 7.33 per cent in Odisha in 2017 compared to 2016. The road accident scenario has further worsened during January and February, 2018 compared to same period of 2017. There is a rise in fatalities by more than 24 per cent.
Even the Supreme Court had expressed concern over the "frightening" number of accident deaths caused due to potholes on roads across the country. The number of fatalities in such incidents was more than those in terror attacks, the apex court had said.