HimVani
Shimla (Apr 29): Himachal Pradesh government has decided to raise ‘steel crash barriers at 170 black-spot places to avert frequent road accidents to ensure the safety of passengers.
A spokesman of the transport department told HimVani that 170 black spots have been identified to fence them with `Steel Crash Barriers’ and parfait to ensure the safety of passengers in the state and Rs 31 25 crore has been allocated in 20011-12 state budget for this purpose.
Rs 14.15 crore would be spent in the state budget for the current finance year strengthen modern driving training and research as the Union government has given approval to this amount for setting up one inspection and certification centre at Taradevi.
Adding another interesting chapter to improve the conditions of already constructed road, 150 km roads would be metal led with help of plastic garbage in the current years as 42 km roads have already been metalled after using 30 tonne plastic wastes.
More than 850 people have been killed last year in various road accidents in Himachal Pradesh due to rash driving, overloading, untrained drivers and poor roads. Public works department and police have identified 556 accident-prone black spots, including 210 on national highways, in the state. According to police records, around 9,000 people have been killed in road accidents in the past 10 years.
The number of accidental deaths touched at an all-time high in 2007, when 979 people lost their lives in 2,955 accidents. Interestingly, there are thousands of temples being setup at such fatal or blind points where number of raod accidents have occurred in the state and people has raised temples on such spots to further avert accidents at that spot. Hanogi Mata Mandir area in Kullu district is one of the most dangerous black hole, which has so far taken toll in hundreds as routinely four to five accident occur in the area each year.
