9.8.21

7 big states start feeding live data on road crashes

In a move that will eliminate the discrepancies in road death data, seven big states including Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka have uploaded real time data of 90,500 road crashes this year in a central database, named IRAD. This includes 30,114 road crashes in such crashes.

Chhattisgarh is the latest to feed live data in the Integrated Road Accident Database. The data are uploaded as and when any road crash is recorded in these states. The government agencies can now analyse the daily, month and yearly trends. Moreover, the causes of such crashes are also recorded from the spot. The road transport ministry has stepped up the plan to cover 24 more states soon.

The IRAD gains importance considering that while the government reports say that annually 1.5 lakh people die in road crashes in India, the World Health Organisation has estimated this to be around 2.5 lakh in a year. Experts have always raised questions on the data captured by the police.

The data which have been uploaded till now by the seven states indicate a national trend in road crashes. This shows that more than one-fourth of the reported crashes — 27,380 out of 90,500— are fatal ones and another 22,434 grievous injuries. So far as the number of persons impacted by the crashes uploaded in the IRAD, out of the 1.32 lakh victims, 30,144 died and the rest were left injured.

The central database also maintains records of the FIRs filed in crashes and the details of how many of the injured actually needed hospitalisation. It also classifies the crashes according to weather conditions, time, type of road and junction, traffic violation and pedestrian infrastructure.

“This will address a lot of issues. Once we have robust data, we can analyse them to take right corrective measures,” said an official.

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