The number of people killed in road accidents in India came down by 13 per cent in the pandemic-affected 2020 when compared to 2019 and 2018.
In 2020, 131,714 people, including 23,483 pedestrians, lost their lives in road accidents in the country. In 2019 and 2018, around 151,113 and 151,417 people were killed respectively, according to the information provided by Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways.
Among the States, Uttar Pradesh (19,149) reported highest number of people losing lives in road accidents in 2021, followed by Maharashtra (11,569), Madhya Pradesh (11,141), Karnataka (9,760), Rajasthan (9,250), Tamil Nadu (8,059), Andhra Pradesh (7,039), Telangana (6,882), Bihar (6 699), Gujarat (6,170) and West Bengal (4,927).
There were 3,66,138 accidents on all roads in the country during 2020, down from 4,49,002 accidents in 2019 and 4,67,044 accidents in 2018.
Tamil Nadu has been reporting the highest number of road accidents among the States in the past 4 years. In 2020, Tamil Nadu reported 45,484 road accidents, followed by Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh (34,243), Karnataka (34,178) and Kerala (27,877).
Major causes for accidents
The major causes of accidents on the National Highways (NHs) are vehicle design and condition, road engineering, over-speeding, drunken driving/ consumption of alcohol & drug, driving on the wrong side, jumping red light and use of mobile phones, among others.
Globally, India ranked third in terms of total accidents, across 199 countries as reported in the World Road Statistics, 2018. However, India's incidence of accidents was 36 per lakh people, which was much less than that of many developed and developing countries like the USA (684), Japan (393), Iran (365) and Turkey (233).
Gadkari said the ministry has formulated a multi-pronged strategy to address the issue of road safety based on education, engineering (both of roads and vehicles), enforcement and emergency care.
An estimated amount of ₹70 crore was allocated for road safety advocacy, good samaritan scheme & publicity measures and awareness campaign for this fiscal. Also, to set up Institute of Driving Training & Research, Regional Driving Training Centres and Driving Training Centre (DTC), an amount of ₹22 crore has been planned, while ₹49 crore will be earmarked for establishing Inspection & Certificate Centres (I&C).