Road safety meet: Safe school travel, free pavement top agenda

NEW DELHI: The Transport department of the Delhi government on Thursday held a meeting of the Road Safety Council, with the council deciding to remove over 140 "black spots", prone to fatal accidents, from the city's roads in the next four months to ensure safety of commuters.

The 21-member Road Safety Body, chaired by Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot, met for the first time on Thursday after its reconstitution in July.

After the reconstitution, the Transport Minister serves as chairman of the Road Safety Council, while District Magistrates continue to head their respective road safety committees.

Talking to reporters after the meet, Gahlot said there are 141 black spots, identified on the basis of three fatal accidents occurring within 500-metre radius of a particular road stretch every year.

"Devising a full-fledged policy on safe transportation of school children and freeing up pavements from encroachment to facilitate pedestrians were a few important decisions taken in Delhi's Road Safety Council," Gahlot told reporters.

"The council today held its first meeting where we decided to remove all 141 black spots in the next three-four months.

"All District Magistrates have been asked to identify more such black spots under their jurisdiction and share the information with the PWD, the traffic police and other concerned agencies," Gahlot said.

He said corrective measures will be taken at the earliest to prevent accidents on the city's roads.

As per the government's figures, there are certain heavily accident-prone areas in the city, with a large number of black spots, such as Shastri Park with 10 such spots, the most in the city.

NH8 Rajokri has the second highest number of black spots at nine, followed by eight each in ISBT Kashmiri Gate and Peeragarhi area, and Majnu-ka-Tilla with seven black spots.

Gahlot further said that the Council decided to set up a committee to act as "lead agency" with a few sub committees.