Road-making viability must factor in safety as priority
Vijay Chhibber, Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, notes that such PPP initiatives have sometimes tended to ignore matters related to road safety. “Quite a few of those road construction projects did not pay sufficient attention to ensure safety features. This has led us to give reduced emphasis on PPP of late,” he points out. “Merely the basic viability of a PPP project cannot be criterion to clear it, we have learned from experience.”
The earlier stress on PPP has now started showing its flip side. For instance, the authorities have now been forced to construct foot over-bridges and underpasses across arterial roads that had become functional amid much chest-thumping. “The motto now is that if a prospective PPP project doesn’t meet with road-safety requirements, leave it there,” reveals Chhibber, who was till recently in charge of National Highways Authority of India briefly.
roads, the ministry is also aware of the loopholes in the system that should ideally clear path for only qualified drivers. The driving licence continues to be one of the most easily available documents in many parts of India, points out the top official. Even in cases where it is secured through ‘legitimate’ means, the ways of awarding the licence is not tuned to the need of modern times. This is one area that should better with the expected passage of a Road Transport and Safety Bill (RTSB) that has been gaining shape as a draft.
Another problem, Chhibber sees, is the regarding the inspection of the vehicles. A lopsided practice of doing it manually takes away much of the scientific quotient integral to the system. The scrutiny of plates, mirrors, lights and indicators of vehicles is not a minor exercise as is the general notion, he cautions. Even so, cutting short the currently-permitted life period of vehicles (before re-registration) may be loaded with flaws: “It may be that we are playing into the hands of the automobile lobby.”
In the case of driving, Maharashtra and several other states have started issuing smart-card licences featured by a memory chip and a unique gradation system based on the holder’s previous driving offences, if any. On vehicle checks, too, the government will be finding in an increased way its role as a front-end facilitator with a better role of the private sector. Plan is afoot to also outsource work such as proof-checking the design-worthiness of roads by hiring quality consultants who would have a unique ID. Work has already started to map the traffic in routes along a total of nine zones so that the road-construction industry gets a clearer idea of the movement of the vehicles in terms of categories and time. “This is over and above a routine tab that toll booths across the country keep. A strong cross-check exercise.”
Poor state of signage is a disturbing phenomenon. Other road furniture like reflectors, road barriers, culverts also merit improvement. Adding to the issue is vandalism. “Which means we have to keep replenishing them.” As for non-permission to hoardings along NHs, the official says that there in an in-house feeling that perhaps authorities could go for a rethink. “For one, you really shouldn’t be asking the roadside farmer not to permit hoardings in his plot of land. Two, they it can prove to be a good means of public revenue.”
In the case of the RTSB, the Transport Secretary notes that its passage isn’t strewn with that many obstacles like, say, with the long-pending GST (Goods and Service Taxes) that amalgamates several central and state taxes into a single tax aimed at mitigating the issue of double taxation by facilitating a common national market. The proposed legislation, exploring chances of clearance in the upcoming winter session of Parliament, can bring in two major verticals: a Road Safety and Traffic Management Board, and a Road Transport and Multimodal Board.
As for the upcoming 100 smart cities across the country, Chhibber believes that un-cluttering their present traffic congestion would require sufficient inflow of funds. “We have to rectify certain basics,” he adds. “Actually some of the metros are fetching the administration decent money from road taxes and tolls. For instance, Gurgaon. But then not all of it would get ploughed back for urban development.”
On the technological front, “there is a definite change, though it is not path-breaking”. There are changes in designs and add-ons to the existing infrastructure to better road safety. “That is how we have sleeker bridges and thinner but stronger pillars these days.” An ongoing NH upgradation from four to six lanes and above can takes almost a decade to complete nation-wide, but it can curtail accidents to a large extent. In the case of state highways, the “minimum standard” in some stretches has to improve. “We are working on it.” Measures are also being taken to upgrade pedestrian rules even while improvßing the safety of cyclists on roads.
All the same, construction technology keeps differing from place to place. “It won’t be the same in Delhi, Bhagalpur and the Northeast, as cost-consciousness also varies regionally. Further, getting the stakeholder teams (such as contractors and engineers) on to a largely same wavelength will take its time.” Above all, even after the expected passage of RTSB, we should keep revisiting its clauses for possible updates. Let’s not forget that India still has a skewed over-dependence on road transport. Even as a two-third of the country doesn’t enjoy organized road transport, it is being used by 90 per cent of passengers and 70 per cent of cargo. This, when India has the largest network of railways in the world. That only adds to the vitality of our task to improve road safety in India. We are on the right track.