J&K’s man eating roads, need to act promptly

The man-eating roads in Jammu & Kashmir continued to claim the precious lives here, thereby putting a question mark over the government measures and also the frequent road safety awareness being created by the concerned authorities. As per the reports, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) in its report has shown that an alarming total of 4287 lives were tragically lost due to road accidents from 2018 to 2022 in this picturesque yet perilous terrain of J&K. The grim statistics lay bare a harrowing reality, with 984 lives abruptly ending in 2018, 996 in 2019, 728 in 2020, 774 in 2021 and an agonising 805 deaths in 2022, all as a result of road accidents. In 2022, Union Territories collectively recorded 3 percent of the total accidents reported, with the highest number of road accidents among all UTs occurring in J&K, totalling 6092 incidents. The report has mentioned a significant portion of the road fatalities in J&K were attributed to accidents on National Highways. In 2019, 384 persons lost their lives in road accidents on National Highways in J&K. In 2020, the number decreased to 258 deaths, but rose to 268 in 2021 and 259 lives were lost on National Highways in 2022. The fatalities in the road accidents along the highway is putting a huge responsibility on the shoulders of the administration, especially the concerned department to take some immediate steps and also importantly identify all the black spots and ensure there is no violation of traffic norms on these spots. There is a need to come up with 24×7 health care facilities at these vulnerable spots so that the precious lives could be saved on time.