* Road Accident Victim Fund created
Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Oct 17: Advisors to Governor, K Skandan and K Vijay Kumar, co-chaired the 6th State Road Safety Council meeting here today.
The meeting was attended by Financial Commissioner, Health and Medical Education, Principal Secretary Transport Department, Transport Commissioner, Secretary Higher Education, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir, Inspector General Police of Traffic, J&K, Deputy Commissioner Srinagar, Director School Education Kashmir, Commissioner SMC, and representatives of Finance, Planning, Home, Housing and Urban Development Departments.
The meeting was also attended by all Deputy Commissioners besides other concerned officials via video conference.
The meeting was informed that Road Accident Victim Fund has been created for passengers and private vehicles with ex-gratia ranging from Rs 10000 to Rs 100000. It was also informed that the State Government approved an incentive of Rs 5 lakh per vehicle to replace 500 old buses of 15 years-of-age and above with new buses, besides 40 electric-buses in twin capitals of Srinagar and Jammu and 36 new buses for Chenab Valley were procured by JKSRTC.
Principal Secretary Transport, Dr Asgar Hassan Samoon presented a detailed overview of functioning of the Transport Department besides initiatives taken for the modernization of transport sector to cater to the changing needs. To arrest the trend of the frequent accidents, he said, that with the funding of the Central Government, work on various Inspection Certification Centres (ICC) is in progress.
It was given out that ICC and Institute of Driving and Training Research is coming up at Samba at a cost of Rs 14.40 crore and 17 crore respectively. Similarly, 50 kanals of land have been identified at Harwan in Srinagar for establishing ICC besides an IDTR would be established in Budgam at a cost of Rs 17.42 crore.
While reviewing road accidents data management system, the Advisors stressed on using the data for reducing accidents due to increasing policing and improving road construction management for reducing black spots.
The Principal Secretary informed the meeting that Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways (MoRTH) provided funds for procurement of 136 ambulances. He told the meeting that 80 ambulances deployed are being used for Basic Life Support (BLS) both at Jammu and Kashmir division while 50 ambulances have kept for retrofitting and are being used for Advance Life Support (ALS) primarily designed to transport patients of critical care, trauma and accident victims.
Regarding the establishing of Trauma centres, the Advisors were informed that Health and Medical Education Department has established 10 trauma centres out of which seven are functional while the rest would be made operational soon.
On Intelligent Transport System (ITS), the Advisors directed SMC and JMC to complete the process at the earliest. In Srinagar, out of 33 junctions, 20 junctions are working, while work on remaining junctions is in progress, the meeting was told.
On the occasion, Advisor Skandan directed the Deputy Commissioners to complete the district action plan within one month and asked for identification of accident prone areas in their district jurisdictions to reduce accidents.
The Advisors directed the concerned officials to implement Ribbon Development Act at the earliest.
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