‘Nearly 1.5 Lakh People Are Dying On Roads And A Majority Of Them Are Young. Why Are We Not Sensitised?'

India kicked off the first Road Safety Month on January 18 to spread awareness about preventing road crashes. The road transport ministry has set the ambitious target of reducing road fatalities by 50% in the next five years. In an interview with Dipak Dash, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari shares his concerns and outlines the road map:

More than 415 people die on our roads every day. What are the challenges to making our roads safer?

There are lapses in road engineering and we need to fix that. We have decided to conduct a safety audit of all roads and to see that there are proper road markings, signage and crash barriers. We are planning to give these tasks to IITs and reputed engineering colleges. They can identify problems and suggest how these can be rectified. We are coming out with the concept of Project Management Consultancy for each highway project, from conception to completion. There will be a mandatory provision to have road safety experts and similar provision will be made for agencies preparing the Detailed Project Reports. We need to have an integrated approach.

We have no concept of lane driving and that’s one major cause of road crashes. How big is this problem?

There is hardly any compliance of lane driving. Trucks and heavy vehicles are always on the extreme right lane. You can see two-wheelers almost doing a circus on roads. The rules of road have to be followed.

But that can be done only by enforcement.