Reviewing the occurrence of accidents and road safety scenario in Odisha, Chief Secretary has directed the department to link up accident and traffic offence committed by the drivers with Driving License ( DL) data base so that appropriate actions can be taken against reckless driving.
Police has been instructed to mention the DL number of the drivers in accident case records. It has been decided to cancel the DL of those drivers who cause accidents for reckless driving. Chief Secretary Sri Pati has also directed the Transport and Police departments to carry on joint drives for general awareness building along with sensitization of the drivers. Sri Pati held the opinion that following of road safety measures should start from own home and office.
Chief Secretary has also advised health department to issue a SOP for doctors who first sees one accident victim or when that patient is produced before him. Emphasizing on post accident care and management, Chief Secretary directed the department to come up with clear cit guideline within 15 days.
The experts from Transport & Research Wing (TRW) of the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways made a presentation about accident scenario in Odisha. The presentation reveals that Odisha is not among top 13 road accident occurring States. However, the State records around 1.97% in total accidents occurring in the country and 2.81% share in the total number of persons killed in these fatal incidents. Last year Odisha recorded around 9648 accidents and death of 3931 persons in these accidents. Apart from this, around 11087 persons were also injured. Accident rate per 10,000 vehicles in Odisha is around 18.91% against the national average of 26.8%.
Chief Secretary has said that the awareness and enforcement activities should be carried on simultaneously to prevent these fatal incidents which have also have adverse impact on State’s GDP. All RTOs have been instructed to suspend driving license for a period of 3 months in case of speed driving, drunken driving, carrying of overload, carrying of passengers in goods carriages and use of mobile phone while driving. The RTOs have also been instructed to issue direction to all two wheeler dealers for supply of helmet at the time of sale of two wheeler.
Development Commissioner Sri U.N. Behera, Transport Commissioner Dr. C. S. Kumar, Secretary Works Sri N.K. Paradhan, Inspector General Sri Arun Bothsa, Senior Adviser, TRW Sri Ashish Kumar along with other senior officers and theme experts participated in deliberations.