INRnews - Indian Real Estate News

Dwelling upon the safety aspects and expressing concern on the rising number of road accidents, Thiru Baalu said that the Centre and State Governments and the Bodies responsible for administering the road regulations, should play very active role in spreading awareness in road safety. The Minister stressed the need to change our road culture and imbibe road discipline where we respect the right of other road users.

The Minister also informed that to provide timely help to the victims of road accidents, he had held consultations with the Union Ministries of Health & Family Welfare, Telecommunications, Department of Economic Affairs apart form the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) wherein it was decided that the Ministry of Health would identify Hospitals located around National Highways and prepare a scheme for their upgradation for the Eleventh Five Year Plan.

Referring to the congestion on roads, Thiru Baalu said that the States should take adequate measures to bolster public transport by rationalization of tax structure which presently favours personal vehicles compared to public transport. The improvement in public transport would also help the rural people who constitute the majority of our population, the Minister said. He also called upon States to evolve methods where minimum inconvenience is caused to the customer coming to the Transport Department and system is geared up to put an end to the grievances especially in the case of vehicle transfers from one State to another and non-refund of one-time tax paid etc. He suggested that the States should introduce Computer Technology to ensure transparent, citizen friendly services.

The Minister pointed out that due to multiplicity of checks, vehicles on State Check Posts are detained, thereby adversely affecting the productivity of commercial vehicles. Therefore, he said, it is imperative that States should make all efforts to provide barrier free movement to the commercial vehicles.

Speaking on the occasion, the Minister of State for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, Shri K.H Muniyappa urged the States to effectively enforce the regulations governing the weight carried by Trucks and Lorries which is highly important in ensuring road safety and road quality.

He suggested that in the hilly areas of Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, North-east and other States, efforts should be made to make loop roads wherein one road is used for traveling from one direction to other and the other route is used for the return journey as it would be extremely difficult to build four-lane roads in hilly areas.

Shri Muniyappa also suggested that cement concrete roads be built in hill regions since the cement roads have much longer life-span than the Bituminous roads.

Shri Muniyappa informed that for enhancing passenger safety in Buses, a draft Bus Body code has been evolved and an exercise is being undertaken to introduce a system of accreditation to Bus Body-builders to ensure that Buses conform to some minimum safety standards.

The Transport Development Council has on its agenda the issues like overloading, multiplicity of checking on national highways, national data base for driving licences and registration certificates, promotion of public transport system, mechanical fitness of vehicles and pollution control. The National Road Safety Council agenda includes removal of encroachments, implementation of Control of National Highways (Land & Traffic Act 2002), strengthening institutional mechanism in States and Highway Patrol. The two Bodies are meeting together to bring the policy makers, stakeholders, road safety experts on one platform to synergise their efforts to deliberate and recommend policies, which exhibit resonance in transport sector in the country.

The Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Shri Virbhadra Singh also addressed the inaugural session, which was attended by the Transport Ministers from the States like Assam, Bihar, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Orissa, Nagaland and Rajasthan. Besides them, senior Ministry and NHAI officials and the State Transport Commissioners and Secretaries attended the meeting.