STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Expressing deep shock and profound grief over the loss of several precious lives and grievous injuries to several others in the Ramnagar bus accident, Harsh Dev Singh, Chairman JKNPP and former Minister, has lambasted the State Government for its despicable apathy and criminal neglect in addressing the rapid frequency of road accidents in the State.
He regretted that despite the loud claims and tall sloganeering of the State Government with announcements of several policies on road safety, the implementation thereof has yet to see the light of the day.
Harsh said that with a defunct Road Safety Council and unimplemented Road Safety Policy and Road Safety Fund, the tall slogans of the government had proved to be mere hyperboles. He said even the Prime Minister’s slogans in his ‘ Man Ki Baat’ of cashless treatment to road accident victims upto Rs. 30,000 and 15 minute ‘Response Time’ for shifting the injured to nearest empanelled hospitals have nowhere been translated into reality.
He also said that during his visit to the accident site at Keya, Ramnagar, he was shocked to find the utterly apathetic approach of the Health Department officials whose ambulances and first aid could not reach even after the lapse of three hours after the accident had taken place. He said that had it not been the support of local youth who carried and transported the injured youth to nearby hospitals; the number of causalities could have been much higher. He further regretted that accident victims in GMC Hospital Jammu were being asked to procure medicines from the market. Besides the Red Cross Society had also failed to respond to the situation, he lamented.
Seeking a judicial enquiry into the Ramnagar accident, Harsh sought payment of ex-gratia to the tune of Rs. 10 lakh to the kins of deceased and Rs. 2 lakh to the injured. He said that even the Supreme Court has acknowledged the right of kins of road accident victims to compensation with a landmark judgment given by a Bench of Justice T.S Thakur and Justice A.K Goel that where accused is unable to pay compensation, the State Government shall have to pay the same. He deplored that though the State Governor had shown keen interest in tackling the menace of road accidents, the situation remained very grim with J and K topping the country in road accidents as per the report of the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) during the year 2013-14 with the report of 2014-15 yet to come. He said that NCRB had further reported that 63.5 per cent of the total unnatural deaths in J and K had been caused by road accidents as compared to all-India figure of 36.4 per cent.
Urging for strict enforcement of the existing laws on Road Safety, Harsh sought a revamp of the Motor Vehicle Act with strict punishment for the offenders. He said that the recent ‘Disaster Management Plan’ prepared by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences to deal with accidents must also receive due attention of the state govt.
