Road accidents in India: More than 2,000 people lost their lives last year due to the road accidents caused by potholes and more than 4,000 people were injured in over 4,800 road accidents, according to the latest data given by the government in Parliament. Three states, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Haryana account for the maximum number of deaths due to potholes. While 1,043 people were killed in road accidents in Uttar Pradesh last year due to potholes, 222 people died in Haryana and 166 people died in Maharashtra, said road and transport minister Nitin Gadkari.
According to the latest official figures given in the Rajya Sabha, 2015 people lost their lives in 4,869 road accidents caused by potholes last year while 4,108 people were injured.
The government said that national highways are designed, constructed and maintained as per Indian Roads Congress guidelines.
“Various safety measures are made as an integral part of the highway development projects depending upon the site requirement and availability of lands,” Nitin Gadkari told Rajya Sabha.
According to the latest figures, these measures have some positive impact in bringing down the number of deaths in these road accidents.
In 2017, 3,597 people lost their lives in the country due to road accidents caused by potholes. The most populous state Uttar Pradesh accounted for the maximum number of deaths that year. While 987 people lost their lives in Uttar Pradesh in 2017, 726 people lost their lives in Maharashtra, followed by Haryana (522), Gujarat (228) and Punjab (162).
Maharashtra has shown substantial improvement in bringing down the number of deaths due to the road accidents caused by potholes, as the number of people killed declined to just 166 in 2018 from 726 in 2017.
But a small state like Haryana continued to suffer fatalities. The number of deaths due to road accidents caused by potholes remains high in Haryana though there is some improvement in comparison with last year.
In Haryana, 522 people lost their lives in these accidents in 2017. Though the number of fatalities more than halved in 2018 as the number of people killed in such road accidents declined to 222 but it remains high given the small population base of the state.
