Times of India: Chandigarh:
Thursday, April 24, 2014.
The killer
roads of Punjab have snuffed out 9 lives every day for the last 5 years.
According to National Crime Records of Bureau (NCRB), 17,079 people have died
in this period, which saw promises of revamping of these arteries during two
bitterly-fought polls - Lok Sabha in 2009 and Punjab assembly in 2012.
Baring the grim
picture further, a 2013 'Road Accidents in India' Union ministry report says
that the chances of getting killed in a road accident in India are the highest
in Amritsar followed by Ludhiana. Road fatalities have become the reality of
the life of Amritsar's Balwinder Kaur, a widow barely in her 20s. She was
bereaved once again when a truck carrying her father-in-law rammed a tractor
emerging from the fields on to the enter single-lane state highway (SH 25) last
week.
Her village
Dhund (meaning fog) has become a metaphor for gloom as she has lost 72 people
in her neighborhood, including her husband and 14 cousins, since 2009 in road
accidents. "These Akalis made road promised then. They are making them now
again. Kuj ni badleya. Saare Punjab di sadka ch mauta hi mauta (But nothing has
changed. All Punjab roads are seeing death after that)," she weeps
inconsolably.
Till December
last year, 29,361 accidents had taken place that left 42,000 critically
injured. These figures are startling if one compares them to the lives lost
even during the dark 10-year-long period of terrorism in Punjab. From 1981 to
1995, the state saw 21,532 people, over 8000 terrorists and 1,746 cops lose
their lives.
It comes as
no surprise that Congress candidate Capt Amarinder Singh is largely tearing
into the Akalis on basic issues concerning roads and unmanned railway level
crossings in Amritsar, the constituency being dubbed as mother of all battles
in Punjab.
"Sukhbir
Badal is in transport business for so long. He talks of development alone. He
must explain these deaths. When the sitting MP Navjot Sidhu talked of diversion
of Centre funds here, they choked his voice." says Amarinder.
But, the
ex-CM's wife Preneet Kaur, a sitting MP in Patiala, and Ludhiana candidate
Ravneet Bittu too are under similar attack from their opponents and locals.
After all,
Kaur's constituency, a city known for the famous Patiala peg, tops the list of
accidents, among all districts, at more than 400 such cases per year.
The traffic
department's Rs 20-crore fine generation reveals that most of the violations
recorded are only static, such as those for black film, no number plate and
pollution certificate.
Overspeeding,
drunken driving, and no seat belt are hardly a violation with just about 570 cops
and 55,000 km of roads in Punjab.
An RTI query
by a Ropar-based activist and advocate Dinesh Chadha in 2013 revealed that the
test for a driving license in Punjab lasts only 16 seconds.
"No
wonder we lose 14 lives every day in the state. Hardly 1% of Punjab roads are
desgined with proper intersections, driving signs, speed breakers or
turns." says Navdeep Asija, IITian and Fazilka-based technical adviser to
safe transport society, Punjab government.
In a state,
where Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal is annually distributing 1.52 lakh bicycles
to girl students in villages, there is no passage for non motor transport and
rural-urban accident ratio stands at 65:35, says a Road Safety report by Asija.
"While
the development takes place in their big towns every election, we, the farmers,
who supply grains continue to lose our lives," grimaces 72-year-old
Patwant Singh
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