SC panel lauds road safety measures taken up by Patna

PATNA: The Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety on Monday appreciated the Bihar’s strategy and said it emerged as a standard model for all other states.
The committee, chaired by Justice (retd) Abhay Manohar Sapre, praised Bihar’s road safety model at its review meeting through videoconferencing attended by Bihar chief secretary Deepak Kumar, transport secretary Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, additional chief secretary (road construction department) Amrit Lal Meena, ADG (CID) and state transport commissioner among other officials.
Briefing the SC panel about the steps taken by the state government, the chief secretary said: “Various training programmes for drivers and traffic police are being organized by the transport department. Besides, a special vehicle testing campaign is being conducted in several districts. Areas prone to road accidents have been being identified and strategies have been formulated to mitigate road accidents in those areas. The entire transport enforcement system has been equipped with hand-held devices.”
Later, the transport secretary told this newspaper: “There has been a negative growth in road accidents since the last four quarters. The negative growth has been registered after a gap of five years. Hence, it is a big achievement for us.”
He added: “During last year’s review meeting, the committee wasn’t impressed with our model. But this year they have lauded our framework. We have worked in tandem with other departments of the state to bring down the rate of accidents. We will deploy the same framework for road safety in the coming quarters to reduce the number of road accidents even further.”
The committee was also informed about the transport arrangements made by the state government to bring migrant workers during Covid pandemic.
Justice Sapre was also impressed by the presentation made by the transport secretary and lauded him for carrying out excellent coordination with other departments in the state to bring down the number of road accidents in the last four consecutive quarters.