Unfortunately, we have been helplessly seeing spurt in road tragedies taking a heavy toll of precious lives, especially in hilly and mountainous areas and excepting the momentary response to each unfortunate accident from the State authorities on customary lines, we have been seeing nothing being done in concrete terms on the ground to revisit the existing road safety measures and mop up and organise the same afresh befitting the emerging situations on the roads.
Time and again, we have been stressing upon the need to have a comprehensive road safety policy with provisions incorporated for strict road discipline norms to be followed by the transport operators which include totally banning overcrowding in the vehicles, not allowing vehicles to run which have no latest fitness certificates, proper verification of permits and permissions including drivers’ hilly licences , installing traffic signals and cautions on blind curves etc. Road Safety Council must infuse new spirit and working priorities in it including meeting very frequently to take stock of the position on roads and the levels of safety norms . It is not understandable as to the fate of the schedule fixed by the Governor himself on the subject matter being taken casually at the implementation levels. We urge the concerned departments to work in tandem in the subject matter and take such steps that the tragedies on roads are considerably contained and try to surpass the goal of the Union Ministry of Road Transport to reduce road fatalities and injuries by 50% by 2020 taking the base as the year 2016. Jammu and Kashmir state should do it earlier than ending 2020 and increase the percentage as well.
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