(This story originally appeared in on Nov 16, 2017)

NEW DELHI: Soon, national highways in India will get star ratings on a scale of zero to five based on a survey of their safety parameters.The results of one such pilot survey will be out for Delhi-Mumbai and Mumbai-Chennai corridors of Golden Quadrilateral in the next few months. The survey is being carried out more than a decade after the country’s first ever mega highway programme was completed.International Road Assessment Programme (IRAP) is carrying out the survey funded by World Bank and Bloomberg Philanthrophies.A similar survey covering more than 10,000 km of state highways in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana between 2010 and 2015 had found that at least 75% of these stretches had less than two or two star ratings. The findings show these highways were more unsafe for motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians in comparison to four wheel vehicles.“After carrying out assessment of more than a million km of roads across 80 countries we have found that if we can succeed in increasing the star rating by one rank, we can avoid substantial number of accidents and fatalities,” said Rob McInerney while launching the India chapter of IRAP at World Road Meet organised by International Road Federation (IRF).Global transpiration major FedEx Express has joined hands with IRAP for this initiative. India’s national and state highways network comprising only 5% of all roads, account for more than 60% of all deaths on road.More than 90,000 people died in crashes on these roads in 2016. According to IRAP, the assessment of roads for all users is carried out on 50 road attributes and for every 100m.“The system records features that are known to effect the likelihood and severity of a crash. Based on crash studies from around the world, the scoring and star ratings are done,” it said.