‘Road accidents cost India 1L cr a year’ ,Country Has Maximum No. Of Deaths Annually

New Delhi: Road deaths and injuries cost India at least Rs 1 lakh crore per year, Planning Commission member B K Chaturvedi said while inaugurating a regional conference on road safety strategy on Monday organized by International Road Federation (IRF). He said the government aims to reduce road fatalities by 50% by 2020.
India has the dubious distinction of registering maximum number of road deaths annually. The latest report prepared by the transport research wing of road transport and highways ministry said that in 2009, 125,660 people were killed in road accidents and another 5,15,458 received severe or minor injuries. According to a note jointly prepared recently by the health and the highways ministries, an estimated 1.6 lakh people were killed in road accidents in 2010. However, the report is yet to be released.
Road safety experts feel that the number of accidents and road deaths reported are less than the actual figures due to lack of scientific data collection. “Road accidents are serious issues, but little attention is being paid to this. While, annually, the nation loses almost 1.5% of its GDP on account of road accidents, we are not even spending 10% of that amount to make our roads safe,” said K K Kapila, chairman of IRF.
He pointed out that while the government was pushing construction of 20km of national highways every day to accelerate infrastructure growth, the focus should also be on making safe roads.