In what can be seen as a positive development, road accidents decreased 8.1% and injuries fell by 14.8% in 2021 compared to 2019. This data was released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) in its annual report ‘Road accidents in India — 2021’. Fatalities, however, increased by 1.9% in the period analysed by the ministry.
MoRTH reported 412,432 road accidents in 2021, which claimed 153,972 lives and caused injuries to 384,448 persons.
In 2020, MoRTH said the country saw an unprecedented decrease in accidents, fatalities and injuries mainly due to the unusual outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and resultant stringent nation-wide lockdown, particularly during March-April, 2020 followed by gradual unlocking and phasing out of the containment measures.
The report is based on the data/ information received from police departments of States and Union Territories collected on calendar year basis in standardised formats, as provided by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) under the Asia Pacific Road Accident Data (APRAD) base project.
Road accidents are multi-causal and requires multi-pronged measures to mitigate the problems through concerted efforts of all agencies of both Central and State governments. The ministry, along with related organisations and stakeholders, has formulated a multi-pronged strategy to address the issue of road safety based on the 4E principle – Education, Engineering (both of roads and vehicles), Enforcement and Emergency Care.
In this direction, MoRTH has implemented a scheme called “Grant of Financial Assistance for Administering Road Safely Advocacy and Awards for the Outstanding Work Done in the Field of Road Safety”.
Improving safety on Indian roads has been a major area of focus for the government, and the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 is expected to bring reforms in various segments, including enforcement of road safety norms and guidelines, bring citizen facilitation, transparency, and reduce corruption with the help of information technology and removing intermediaries.
Meanwhile, a central repository, Integrated Road Accident Database (iRAD) system has been developed by the ministry for reporting, management, claim processing and analysis of road accidents data to enhance road safety in the country.
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