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12,000 die on roads, governmentt twiddles thumbs

6th April, 09: The high rate of accidents on the Pune-Solapur highway has brought into focus the fact that the state government’s Accident Prevention Committee (APC) has been defunct for 30 months between October 2005 and June 2008.

It highlights the poor record of the government on the road accidents front.

While India had the highest number of road accident fatalities in the world with more than one lakh deaths per year, in 2008, Maharashtra saw 12,000 deaths in road mishaps. This was a 15% rise from the previous year.

Nearly 600 persons die every year in road accidents on the Pune-Solapur highway alone.

Last Monday last, Pune-based TV journalist Venkatesh Chapalgaonkar and his car driver Balasaheb Kamble were killed while travelling to Solapur from Pune on an official assignment.

Videographer Rajesh Bidkar who was accompanying them was also seriously injured in the mishap.

Ironically, a few years ago, state cabinet minister Patangrao Kadam’s son Abhijeet was also killed almost on the same spot near Sabaleshwar in an accident.

The 15-member APC has been given the task of identifying accident-prone spots on national and state highways and district roads.

Based on their suggestions, the state government then initiates road safety measures.

Between 1996 and 2005, the committee detected about 15,000 accident-prone sites on roads including the Pune-Solapur national highway number 9.

The state government has managed to rectify about 8,000 such spots and the rest are still in “the process of rectification,” road safety crusader and a member of the panel, Chandmal Parmar told DNA.

According to a committee member, the panel did not have a single meeting between October 2005 and June 2008.

Ranjan Dasgupta / DNA