To incorporate national and international best practices in its recommendations

The Cabinet sub-committee on Road Safety has decided to prepare a comprehensive report on the measures that should be adopted to minimise accidents on national highways by studying the best practices and laws adopted across the country as well as some abroad.

The Cabinet panel headed by Roads and Buildings Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao expressed concern that close to 7,000 people were losing their lives annually due to road accidents and asserted that the committee committed to suggest measures that could bring down the accidents to zero level. The committee comprising Ministers K.T. Rama Rao, P. Mahender Reddy, J. Krishna Rao and A. Indrakaran Reddy held meeting with senior officials including the DGP M. Mahender Reddy and R&B secretary Sunil Sharma on Monday.

The participants opined that the absence of coordination among different departments involved was leading to road accidents. Studies revealed that 20 per cent of the accidents were because of the quality of roads while 80 per cent of them were occurring because of the mistakes on the part of the drivers. Officials informed that fatalities due to road accidents during 2014 were 6,906, 7,110 during 2015 and 7,219 during 2016.

But the number had come down significantly during the current year because of the effective coordination between the national highways authority, revenue and police departments. Though the State was leading other in terms of road safety measures and prevention of accidents, it was lagging behind when compared with global standards. The committee had therefore decided to convene meetings with experts, stakeholders and officials for finalising its report which would be submitted to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.

The committee discussed about the scope for handing over road safety monitoring and other aspects to the Roads and Buildings department and it was decided to take a call on the issue after the preparation of the report. Mr. Nageswara Rao said since the government had decided to observe the first week of January as road safety week, the committee members had decided to meet again later this month to discuss the measures that should be adopted to bring down the accidents.