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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Only in India: Swift driving licences, highest casualties -Dipak Kumar Dash

Only in India: Swift driving licences, highest casualties -Dipak Kumar Dash

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published Published on Jan 15, 2016   modified Modified on Jan 15, 2016
-The Times of India

NEW DELHI: Road transport minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday blamed the faulty driver licencing regime for India's notorious distinction of registering maximum road fatalities across the globe. In other countries, applicants need to undergo stringent tests and clearing them in the first attempt is rare.

"It's easiest to get a driving licence in India and so we have the maximum number of road deaths in the world estimated around 1.4 lakh in a year; 16 deaths every hour. When I ask people how many of them actually visited Regional Transport Offices (RTO) to get the licence, very few show their hands. We all know how licences are issued and how people get them," Gadkari said while addressing a big gathering of NGOs working on road safety issues.

It's not a secret how the driver licencing system is flawed and people get licences simply by paying extra charges to the middlemen. About 1,000 RTOs annually issue over 1.15 crore fresh or renewed driving licences.

Recalling his experience in the Maharashtra government as PWD minister, Gadkari said that after he met with a crash he found that his driver had cataract. "I ordered checking the eyesight of all government drivers and we found about 40% drivers had cataract. There was one leader whose driver used to drive by following sounds...I appeal to you to carry out a major campaign to test the eyesight of drivers," Gadkari said.

He added that the present system of issuing driving licenses will soon be replaced by a transparent and efficient computerised licensing system without any human intervention.

Raising its concern over the menace of indiscriminate doling out of driving licences, a Supreme Court-appointed committee on road safety has urged the apex court to come out with a direction that every designated officer will issue not more than 15-20 driving licences a day. TOI in June 2014 had first reported how in some cases one officer at an RTO had issued 200 licences in a day. "How can this be humanly possible? This practice exposes how people get licences easily and there is collusion," panel chairman Justice KS Radhakrishnan had told this newspaper.

Earlier in the day, addressing a conference organized by International Road Federation, road transport secretary Sanjay Mitra said it's high time to plan a scheme to sensitise and educate truck drivers on road safety on lines of AIDS awareness and prevention programme launched for heavy vehicle drivers several years ago. Under the programme all medium and heavy vehicle drivers can be educated about careless driving as well as about benefit of road worthiness of vehicles, Mitra said.


The Times of India, 15 January, 2016, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Only-in-India-Swift-driving-licences-highest-casualties/articleshow/50584897.cms


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