Transport Research Centre to be set up

Vijayawada: Transport, Road and Buildings Minister Sidda Raghava Rao asserted that a Transport Research Centre would be formed in the State to focus on the issue of reducing road accidents.

Inaugurating the 28th State Road Safety Week celebrations at APSRTC House, the Minister said the Transport Research Centre is needed to have comprehensive discussions on road accidents.

Transport, police, RTC and roads and building departments would be in the committee of the Research Centre, he said.

He also said accidents prone spots and roads would be identified across the State soon and steps would be taken to acquire land for establishing sufficient number of trauma care centres on certain places.

He expressed happiness for achieving seven national awards by APSRTC in recent time and exhorted drivers to make serious efforts to achieve zero accidents record.

APSRTC Managing Director and Vice-Chairman M Malakondaiah said steps would be taken for reducing road accidents and some issues, including focusing on health problems of drivers and improving vehicle conditions, had already been identified.

He said coordination among the government departments would be vital to reduce road accidents.

Principal Secretary of Transport, Road and Buildings Department Sumita Dawra suggested to drivers to be careful while driving to prevent accidents.

Transport department commissioner N Balasubramanyam said 8,500 people were dying in road accidents in a year in Andhra Pradesh and it was 1.40 lakh per year at national-level.

Youth in the age group of 15-30 years were dying in road accidents per every two hours in the State, he pointed out.

“The accident rate increased to 5.2 per cent from 1.2 per cent though we made serious efforts to reduce the accidents.

Road engineering is one of the key elements in reducing road accidents and more number of trauma care centres are needed to save life of accidents victims,” he said.

Felicitation for best drivers
The Minister and officials felicitated G Dastagiri, a driver of Produturu depot of Kadapa district, who received the best driver award at national- level form Union Minister Nitin Gadkari for zero accident record during his 30 years of service in APSRTC.

Transport, Road and Buildings Minister Sidda Raghava Rao also felicitated 51 other drivers of having very nominal accident record.
Executive director of RTC (operations) Jaya Rao explained measures that were being taken to reduce accidents.