When will the govt act?
Just during a span of five days around four dozen people lost their lives to road mishaps in the difficult hilly terrain of the state. 11 lives were lost to the bad roads and difficult terrain on Thursday last while as more than 30 people died in Sirgawari Keshwan village in Kishtwar district on Monday morning.
Every time there is mishap of such mammoth proportions, the government comes out with a statement condoling the deaths and announcing ex-gratia for the kin of those who lose a member among their family.
Beyond this cosmetic measure the state government either headed by an elected government or run and managed by officials, there has been no headway to take or even plan long term measures to avoid such fatalities.
During the last one decade, over ten thousand people have died in road accidents. The highest number of causalities was reported in the year 2012 which was put at 1165.
In the last ten years, sixty thousand road accidents have taken place in the state and over eighty thousand people have suffered injuries. Most numbers of injured were reported in the year 2011.
Most of the road accidents take place in Jammu division owing to the difficult terrain in most parts of the Chenab valley. In Kashmir region most deaths and injuries are reported from Srinagar district.
The high incidence of road mishaps should have acted as a wakeup call for the state administration, but nothing of that sort has happened. Though the state has introduced the Jammu and Kashmir Road Safety Council Act, 2018, that advocated the formation of a State Road Safety Council, the proposal has not moved beyond papers.
The road safety council act could have turned the leaf for the better and solutions that too long term could have been propped up to the road mishap menace in the state. But alas, the official lethargy has put such a viable option at the back burner.
The official machinery needs to intervene immediately that too at various levels so that a mass awareness programme is initiated to reach out to the people of the state and aware them about the dangers of travel and driving recklessly.
It is high time that the administration wakes up to the call, otherwise the fatalities will continue to mount with every passing day.
The number of road fatalities has been witnessing an increased trend as it has become a routine in the entire state to witness road mishaps. What seems more ironic is that these killings hardly unnerve us anymore.
The state has recorded the highest number of fatalities due to road mishaps. As per the records for the last eight years, on an average, 15 accidents take place every day. A person gets killed in an accident every seven hours while someone is left injured every hour.
This needs to be stopped at an earliest and the Governor lead administration should take up this issue on priority.
KV Network
