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| Coordination needed for preventing accidents | | |
Khushwant S Ranial
The life of every human being is very precious to one’s family irrespective to his social structure standings. Day in and day out we come across outnumbered cases reported of the road accidents .Alone in the District Doda, around 100 people have fallen prey to the accidents in last eight months , which meant that around the same number of families have got deprived of the valuable contributions of their services to sustain the daily expenses etc .Every time whenever an accident does takes place ,traffic police is held accountable for all such a mess wherever other sister agencies who are directly or indirectly related to such misshapenness are either overlooked or go scoot free .The sole reason is on the account of the fact that Traffic is a visible agency who regulates the traffic flow on the roads while other does not figure out directly on the face .All such existing scenario compels one to ponder whether one should really pull the ox by the horns or find an escape route.
Analysis of the problem has revealed that the basic reason behind increased size of the accidental rates is the overpopulation , lack of town planning, same aged old roads, illegal encroachments, multiplications of vehicles on the roads to meet the demanding needs of the society., dilapidated roads conditions with no repairs for the months together, shortage of parking slots, lack of civic sense and general awareness among the commuters and the public ,punitive violation of the rules and regulations, corrupt mindset of the law enforcing agencies to meet their vested interests and above all lack of integrated approach and poor coordination among the varying sister agencies like Transport deptt., Traffic deptt ,PWD[Rand B], CAPD ,BEACON, Judiciary etc .In addition ,the thrust of the government to deal with the menace of growing overpopulation and volume of transport vehicles arriving on the roads without any healthy check is also a major cause of concern .There is no concrete policy to ensure that minimum number of vehicles with different brands must ply on the roads and also only one vehicle per family must prevail in case of those whose purchasing power could afford to do so but with the strict condition that the concerned owner give in writing to place his vehicle inside his own premises. Also lack of driving skills , professional incompetence, over speeding, overloading, inadequate geometric features for segregating slow traffic, lack of intersections on the sharp curved areas especially in the hilly terrains and poor road alignment etc are other few among main causes responsible for the excessive accidental rates.
As per the official record available ,there were 3.06 lakhs vehicles in the year 1951,6.65 lakhs in 1961 ,18.65 lakhs in 1971,53.91 lakhs in 1981 ,213.74 lakhs in 1991 323.65 lakhs in 2001 and 412.43laks in 2007 in India and production of vehicles rose from 21658 in 1975-76 to 356768 in 2003-04 and as per data the existing total strength of the vehicles is around 70 million and around 6 to 7 million addition is taking place every year in our India out of which nearly 50000 vehicles are alone adding in J and K only every year .Thus under these compelling circumstances one can better gauge the overgrown rampant addition of the vehicles with the meager strength of the controlling and regulation bodies in the form of traffic and transport department .It is quite pitiable to mention that both the department who are directly involved with traffic system are highly understaffed .The strength of the transport department in whole state of J&K is around
275 serving personnel with 17 ARTO’S AND 30 OFFICERS under the command of one transport commissioner .Same is the case with the traffic department which came into existence in the year 1981-82 is having the strength not more than 5oo headed by one Inspector General though in order to improve the image and working conditions of the traffic department ,some endeavour has been made by the state Govt. to increase the existing strength,
One should not forget that transport is the basic pipeline of survival in this era of materialistic age but equally one should not overlook this aspect that for smooth flow of traffic, three basic elements i.eEngeenering ,Education and Enforcement are urgently required to work together in strong cohesion for the effective regulation of the traffic. Where ever and whenever any one of these basic elements is found missing, traffic mismanagement is bound to occur to create chaos . So in order to overcome the shortcomings ,it becomes necessary that special awareness drive regarding rules and regulations for every common citizen be made at every front irrespect of the areas, Periodic seminars at the different levels of educational institutions be also started for updating the youth to become socially aware about their rights and responsibilities.
Apart, A uniform scale must prevail in penalizing the compound amount after arriving at the general consensus. A joint drive must be launched by the traffic and transport department at the regular intervals of time to clear the fitness of the vehicles plying on the vehicles .Also a separate data analysis wing must be established to ascertain the core reasons behind the causes of accidents and number of eventualities taken thereof .Further this wing should focus her attention towards nature of intersections, curves ,centripetal forces ,mappings, road designing, road alignments ,suggesting the construction of parapets ,and display of road signs at every turning point with caution mark like danger, steep ascent or descent, ahead etc. This data collection must serve as an eye opener for the research work in lessening the woes of the public. From medical point of view ,more and more trauma care centers needs to be set up at every 25 to 30 kilometers range along the main highway with 24 hours facilities available for meeting out any uncertain emergency .Speed limits boards should be displayed at every equal distance .More and more routes permits be allotted to the different applicant routes to curtail the overloading especially during the pressure built up in the peak hours .In order to maintain the flow of the citizens JDA ,MUNICIPALITY and NAC must collectively render the yeoman’s service in the removal of the illegal encroachments along the roads .Last but not the least No Objection Certificate must be sought by every builder from the concerned agency before the start of new structures. Creation of more and more new parking slots, passengers sheds, permanent picking and dropping points must be raised to keep traffic system in order .So in gist , forceful enforcement of law is utterly desired for the improvement of the traffic mobility. Until stringent measures are not adopted in the
Indian social milieu ,flexible and lenient attitude is not going to serve the purpose and even the efforts of the enforcing agencies can not do wonders if the public does not lend healthy cooperation to seek the scenario grow better day by day.
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