PANAJI
With several Transport and Police officials bunking the meeting of the Goa State Road Safety Council, a statutory body mandated by a Supreme Court judgement, Transport Minister Mauvin Godinho was livid and blamed several departments for neglecting road safety.
Godinho said negligence of officials was compromising road safety in the State even as he underscored the importance of tackling some critical issues.
He lamented that some of the department heads were absent for the meeting.
"We have the attendance of who have attended the meeting, the HODs of these departments should come as well, since they have no commitment they didn’t come,” said Godinho.
Nonetheless, the minister at the meeting did list out some serious steps taken by the State government to address road safety, including identifying black spots across the State and drawing up a plan through the PWD to rectify them.
He said, 31 black spots have been identified and a plan to immediately rectify at least a dozen of these critical ones has already been put through a tender process.
He asserted that the government treats road safety with utmost importance and urged the various departments to take measures as soon as possible to make roads safe as deaths occur almost every other day.
Meanwhile a team of the Road Safety Council comprising of top transport, PWD and police officials conducted a site inspection of the KTC bus-stand in Panaji, including the area around it where a lady was crushed under the wheels of a bus.
According to consumer activist, Roland Martins, who is also on the council, a similar accident had claimed two lives in February a few years ago. He said, a report will be prepared of the site inspection and recommendations made to improve road safety aspects of the KTC bus stand and surrounding areas.
Meanwhile noted consumer activist Roland Martins, who is part of the Council, raised the issue of speed-breakers across Goa which are located in inappropriate spots, often becoming the cause of accidents several times.
Martins said, these have to be removed and relocated appropriately. He also raised the issue of woefully inadequate 'zebra crossings' and cited the case of the area around Margao KTC bus-stand.
Martins said, zebra crossings around the bus-stand which are crucial for pedestrians have not been painted on the road after the recent event of Prime Minister Narendra Modi there.
