Government forms experts’ panel to find reasons for rising road mishaps in Chenab region
Complying with the directions of High Court, Jammu and Kashmir government on Monday finally constituted a panel of experts, including engineers, to ascertain the major reasons for increasing fatal road mishaps on 110-km-long treacherous Batote-Doda-Kishtwar highway.
The committee, comprising engineers from the Public Works (Road & Building) department, officers from NHIDCL and SSP Traffic (Rural), has been mandated to suggest measures for making this treacherous highway accident-free. No specific deadline has been fixed for the committee of experts to finalise their report and make recommendations to the government.
According to the official statistics, over 2,850 road accidents have been reported in three districts of Chenab region during the last five years, in which at-least 752 people lost their lives, while over 3,600 were injured—many of them rendered handicapped. In 2022 alone, as many as 129 people were killed and 385 received injuries in 621 road mishaps in these three districts.
Headed by Engineer-in-Chief, Secretary, Technical Public Works (R&B) department, the committee will have Secretary, Road Safety Council, Executive Director (P) NHIDCL, Jammu office, Superintending Engineer, PWD Doda Circle, and SSP (Traffic) Rural Jammu as its member.
In December last year, a Division Bench of the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh had directed the Government to constitute Committee of Experts (CoE) to ascertain reasons and file Action Taken Report (ATR) on the frequent road accidents in the hilly areas of Chenab Valley comprising three districts of Ramban, Doda and Kishtwar.
On December 17 last year, a social activist of Doda district had written a letter to the Chief Justice of J&K and Ladakh High Court requesting for taking suo-moto cognizance of increasing road accidents in the hilly terrain of Chenab Valley. The letter was treated as Public Interest Litigation (PIL) and clubbed with a PIL titled Intakhab Ahmed Qazi Versus State of J&K and Others, which raised the issue with regard to road accidents on the Mughal Road.
The letter was written close on the heels of the death of three engineers in a fatal road mishap near Assar area on the Batote-Kishtwar national highway on November 14 last year.
Pertinently, the much-hyped ‘J&K Road Safety Policy’ (RSP) that had committed “to provide safe and secure roads by taking appropriate steps to reduce the fatalities” has apparently remained on papers only. Approved in 2016, the basic objective of policy was “to reduce fatalities and injuries in road mishaps by 2020 considering 2016 as the base year”.
The RSP had envisaged that all existing and new roads would be equipped with standard traffic control features like signs, marking, crash barriers, delineators etc, besides initiatives would be taken to upgrade major roads in the state and classify important roads as state highways.
