Curated By: Business Desk
Last Updated: August 17, 2023, 11:20 IST
Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has been on a drive to reduce the number of accidents on roads and highways. He has instructed the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to identify blackspots on roads and highways and take corrective measures to eliminate those black spots. To achieve the goal, Nitin Gadkari has ordered NHAI Regional Officers (RO) and Project Directors (PD) to hit the streets themselves. This means that they have to go out into the field themselves and find out the root causes of the blackspots.
The Minister has set a target of reducing road accidents by 50 per cent before the end of 2025. Earlier, Nitin Gadkari said that many blackspots are created due to faulty DPR (Details Project Report). He said that some traffic accidents were caused by poor project reports and emphasised the necessity for corporations to receive sufficient training for creating thorough project reports for building highways and other roads. The ROs and PDs have been tasked with identifying these blackspots correctly and determining how to eliminate them.
According to NHAI, around 4002 blackspots were identified on National Highways between the years 2015-2018. Short-term security measures have been implemented for all these black spots. In the year 2021-22, security measures have been implemented at about 716 blackspots. The remaining black spots are being eliminated with the help of long-term safeguards.
An accident blackspot, also known as a black spot, is a location where traffic crashes have historically been concentrated.
Installation of signals, zebra crossing, marking the road, breaker on a side road, making a white strip, installation of solar light and high mast light are some of the short-term methods of eliminating black spots. Long-term methods include the construction of service roads, major junction, pedestrian underpass, vehicle underpasses, flyovers, foot-over bridges and more.
Following the on-site improvements or construction, the number of accidents is tracked over the following three years to determine if it has decreased or reached zero. If this occurs, the black spot is regarded as having ended. For this, the statistics from the NHI and the statistics from the police are compared.
