Over 52,000 road accidents occurred under ‘hit and run’ category in 2020

Nitin Gadkari has said that the provision of an Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) is in the works for high traffic density corridors.

A total of 52,448 road accidents took place under the ‘hit and run’ category in the country in 2020. The Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, in a written reply to the Lok Sabha, said there were 57,987 such cases in 2019 and 69,822 in 2018. The government has also notified a new scheme as ‘Compensation to Victims of Hit & Run Motor Accidents Scheme, 2022’.

Under this scheme, the government made rules to enhance compensation in case of hit and run motor accident from ₹12,500 to ₹50,000 for grievous hurt and from ₹25,000 to ₹2,00,000 in case of death. This scheme will be implemented across the country. 

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In a separate reply to another question, Gadkari said that the road ministry provides for Electronic Monitoring and Enforcement of Road Safety mandates that the state government shall ensure that appropriate electronic enforcement devices are placed at high risk and high-density corridors on National Highways and State Highways.

Further, as per the minister, the provision of an Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) is in the works for high traffic density corridors. 

Overall in 2020, the country recorded 1.5 lakh road accident fatalities, which was 26.37 per cent of total road accidents recorded in 207 countries, Gadkari had informed the parliament last month. He quoted the data of the World Road Statistics (WRS) of the International Road Federation, Geneva.

Due to high risk of accidents in India, the central government has been taking various steps as a move to curb the number of road accidents. While the Motor Vehicle Act has been tightened for motorists to curb traffic rule violations, black spots (locations on highways with a high number of accidents registered) have been identified and rectified as well. Apart from that, various awareness programmes too have been initiated.

(with inputs from PTI)

First Published Date: 01 Aug 2022, 12:04 PM IST