Thaindian News

New Delhi, Jan 3 (IANS) Despite slow development of infrastructure and archaic laws, the Delhi Traffic Police Tuesday said it had managed to make the roads of the capital much safer over the past year.

Speaking at a conference on road safety organised by the International Road Federation (IRF), Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Satyendra Garg said that in December 2010 the police had launched a movement on road safety and its efforts were paying off well.

“Over the last one year, we’ve struck the violators very hard. Also, we have been involved in massive education drives and citizens’ suggestion campaigns on popular social networks,” Garg told reporters here.

“Last year, India had the most road casualties in world but in Delhi, the number of accidents actually reduced, the change most visible in the heavy vehicles category where the accidents dropped by almost 12 percent,” he said.

According to the Secretary of Road Transport and Highways Ministry A.K. Upadhyay, there were about 1.3 lakh deaths and five lakh injuries on Indian roads in 2010.

“These numbers translate into one road accident every minute, and one road accident death every four minutes,” said Upadhyay.

Chairman of IRF’s Geneva chapter K.K. Kapila blamed the lack of political commitment as the reason behind the issue being neglected.

“The country has lost almost Rs.5 lakh crore in the past five years due to accidents and yet the government doesn’t take give due attention to the issue. The missing ingredient is political commitment,” said Kapila.