The Goa police department has constituted a 3-member committee headed by Inspector General of Police Omvir Singh Bishnoi to look into the possible causes of accidents and submit a report within 30 days with causes and recommendations. The team members include DIG Aslam Khan and SP (traffic) Shekhar Prabhudessai. The team will also suggest measures undertaken by various stakeholders and road-owning agencies, besides ensuring the implementation of road regulations as per IRC standards and checking aspects such as road engineering, enforcement of traffic rules and traffic education.
Against the backdrop of a series of accidents in recent times that have snuffed out lives and left several crippled with severe injuries, the government machinery appears to be making a fresh move. The pressure is showing. Not too long ago, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant went into a huddle with senior officers in the traffic division, trying to figure out what was going wrong on the floor.
The move to appoint a new committee is a surprise because Goa already has various committees to study and report on traffic. Lest we forget, in May 2015, the BJP government, acting on the recommendations of a Supreme Court-appointed committee, notified the State Road Safety Policy. The document listed a series of measures to bring safety to the roads. State road safety council and district road review committees were to meet once every three months. There was a road engineering cell consisting of PWD, the transport department and police officials to study roads. The road safety policy's crux was enforcement, road engineering, awareness and emergency services. A tender was also floated for a road safety audit agency. So much for road safety, and here we are still facing "hell on the highways".
The question is whether there was a need for another committee when there is already a comprehensive policy and a monitoring mechanism in place. What's the need to put another committee on the job when high-ranking officials are designated to take care of every aspect of road safety under the policy? And what is the point in calling for suggestions from the general public when they have been ignored all this while? What have officials done when citizens were protesting against bad potholed roads? And why is no cognisance being taken of the pathetic condition of the newly laid concrete highway?
The new study team is a farce to mask the bad publicity that the PWD and traffic enforcement are getting. Apparently, the chairman of the committee and one of its members has no expertise in traffic or road management.
Nonetheless, there are two areas of concern ” traffic enforcement and poor road engineering. The chief minister had maintained that 95 per cent of night accidents are due to drunken driving, and we believed that the new traffic rules would take care of road indiscipline. The gadgetry, however, has long disappeared as quickly as it resurfaced. The speed radar guns, breath analysers, delineators and other equipment, not forgetting the rose diplomacy, have all been forgotten.
So, stop this pretence of dealing with faulty roads and accidents. If there is genuine concern for the safety of motorists, go with the letter and spirit of the State Road Safety Policy.
