Road safety week: Can India meet its 2020 target?

NEW DELHI: Five years ago, India committed itself to reducing road fatalities and injuries to half by signing a Brasilia declaration. But if one looks at the 2018 data, which is the latest one released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, India is sure to miss this target.
While India did see a fall in road fatalities in 2017, when 1.47 lakh persons died in road crashes in 2017 compared to 1,50 lakh in 2016--a drop of 1.9%, in 2018, the numbers rose again with 1.49 lakh lives lost in road crashes.(See graphic).

Measures employed
In an effort to bring down fatalities, India revamped its 30-year-old Motor Vehicles Act — the new MV act finally got a green light by both Houses of the Parliament in 2019.
The new Act suggested an exponential increase in penalties for violation of rules besides including hosts of preventive measures like vehicle fitness tests, vehicles recall in case of defect and Good Samaritan law.
In the first two months of its implementation in few states, there was a 9% reduction in the number of deaths. But with most of the states like West Bengal, MP and Gujarat reluctant to embrace the law, India cannot expect a significant reduction in road crashes and deaths.
Says Piyush Tewari, CEO, SaveLife Foundation, “We have been telling state governments to not go after populist measures but to take cognisance of the law which is not just about fines but also preventive in nature.”
On its part, the Centre has written to the states to enforce the amended MV Act as it is a parliamentary legislation and that state governments cannot pass any law or take executive action to lower the penalty below the prescribed limit. But unless states bite the bullet and implement the law, it won’t yield the promised results.