India State Support Programme for Road Safety

On June 28, 2022, the World Bank approved a USD 250 million loan for the road safety programme of Indian government, which addresses the high road accident fatality rate in India.

Highlights

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) has approved the variable spread loan. It has a maturity of 18 years along with a grace period of 5.5 years.

Aim of the Road Safety Programme

• The Road Safety Programme aims to help participating states in reducing road crash fatalities and injuries by improving institutional reforms, road safety management and results-based interventions on high-risk roads.
• This programme will also strengthen emergency medical and rehabilitation services for a better post-crash care.
• This project will create efficient institutional mechanisms for safer roads, vehicles, and enforcement in India, besides strengthening efforts for providing better on-the-spot care to road accidents victims.
• It will focus on strengthening and streamlining management capability of agencies for road safety across the states.

National Harmonized Crash Database system

This project will establish a National Harmonized Crash Database system, to reduce the road accidents incidents. Analysis of these data will be used to construct better and safer roads.

In which states will this program be implemented?

India State Support Program for Road Safety programme will be implemented in states of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.

Road accidents in India

India accounts for 1 percent of world’s vehicles. Despite that, India accounts for 10% of all crash related deaths. Poor families bear a higher proportion of socio-economic burden of road crashes because of loss of income, limited access to social safety nets and high medical expenses. More than 70 percent of crash victims are in poor households.  As per World Bank, road crashes are estimated to cost between 5% to &% of GDP in a year in India. According to Indian government’s data, road accidents kill about 150,000 people and leave 450,000 injured, every year. Over half of the victims are motorcyclists, cyclists or pedestrians. Around 84% of all fatalities are among road users aged between 18-60 years.

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2022