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DEHRA DUN: Uttaranchal, the land of the Four Dhams, seems to be fast taking its famed title of being a "road to heaven" too literally. Despite the administration's promise to improve road safety, more than a hundred road accidents have taken place in the state, leaving over a 1,000 dead in the past year alone. Although the state last year saw a spurt in the number of pilgrims and tourists, a must for its largely tourism-oriented economy, the failure of the state administration to ensure safety on the roads and the consequent accidents could bring the curtains down over the new-found boom.
As such, Madhukar Gupta, Chief Secretary of the state, has promised new measures to curb the high rate of mishaps by setting up task forces. "After the recent spate of accidents near Badrinath and other adjoining areas, we have reviewed the arrangements already made. Now we are going to formulate task forces comprising district officials and police personnel for each district. These teams would keep an eye on every nook and corner of the roads to detect overloading, check licences and examine the fitness of the vehicles," he said. But despite his assurances, the empty checkposts of the Road Transport Department tell a different story. The officials there are aware of their duties but shiift the blame onto a shortage of staff - the usual Indian bureaucratic excuse everywhere in the country and behind which facade they also procreate themselves at geometric proportions. "Our main aim is to find out the number of passengers travelling, maintain the log book, check for overloading and also check their papers. We do our best but lack enough manpower," said Brijlal Kanaujia, Superintendent of Road Transport Office.
Even in areas where checking is actually done, the exercise barely follows the full procedure. No provision exists to scrutinise the vehicular safety of the tourists. To add to the mess, the state does little about vehicles coming from areas of maximum tourist inflow, like Delhi, UP and Rajasthan. The need of the hour, if the lives of the innocent tourists are to be saved, is to tighten the safety rules and and curb corruption in the transport and traffic police departments. "The transport office is most definitely faltering as it gives fitness certificates without a complete and proper checking of the bus staff. The officials are also lax in their approach", remarked Vijay Godiyal, a resident of Rishikesh. According to Sanjay Shastri, president of Yatra Buses Union, "the traffic in these areas has increased but the roads have also been widened. It's the vehicles coming from outside the state that are responsible for these accidents. The administration has no control over them, they are drivers coming from the plains and have little knowledge about hill driving. They do not control their speed." Beautiful though they are, the tranquil regions of Gangotri, Badrinath and Kedarnath are the latest to fall prey to governmental apathy. The locals, who rely heavily on tourism for their daily bread, are scared that the increasing rate of road accidents would drive away the intending tourists and pilgrims. And they blame the transport department for it. While the administration has yet again promised to take measures, it needs to do act fast before those once-holy roads are renamed as killer roads. -ANI & India Overseas |
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