Amritsar, Ludhiana, Varanasi top in road fatalities

NEW DELHI: Among all million-plus cities in India, roads were deadliest in Amritsar where seven lives were snuffed out in every 10 road crashes last year. Ludhiana ranked second with one death in every two crashes and Varanasi was third in the list, according to the latest government data on road accidents, released on Wednesday.

The report prepared by the Transport Research Wing (TRW) of road ministry shows while the overall number of deaths in accidents in 50 big cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai, has been decreasing over the past three years, probably due to increasing congestion, road fatalities are on the rise in rural areas.

The fatalities in big cities have fallen from 17,007 in 2013 to 16,513 in 2015. But in rural areas, it has gone up from 83,003 to 89,155 during the same period. The total number of road deaths in India stood at 1.46 lakh, which is the highest ever and maximum among all countries.

"Speeding and little enforcement have been the main reasons behind the increasing number of fatalities. We must carry out a study to assess the socio-economic cost of crashes, fatalities and injuries since we are losing very young people in road crashes," said Ashish Kumar, former TRW chief.

Pointing out the need for the Centre and states to work together to deal with this crisis, a government official said 13 states, including UP, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, MP, Bihar, Punjab and Haryana, accounted for 83.6 per cent of all road fatalities.