Govt notifies road safety fund to achieve ‘accident-free TN by 2030’

CHENNAI: To reduce the number of road accidents, the State government has notified the Tamil Nadu Non-Lapsable Road Safety Fund rules which have been created to implement road safety measures such as road engineering, traffic enforcement, trauma care and ensure road safety awareness.

According to the gazette notification, the fund primarily caters to the rapid deployment of money to minimise delays out of conventional funding mechanisms to further road safety and to facilitate innovative interventions to aid and augment the vision of ‘Accident-free Tamil Nadu by 2030’.

The fund would be utilised for road infrastructural enhancements, remedial measures on accident spots, purchase of barricades, cones and other traffic calming and regulating equipment. Apart from creating road safety awareness, it would be utilised to conduct studies to identify causes of road accidents, identify accident-prone spots and recommend remedial measures.

The new rules would replace the Tamil Nadu Road Safety Rules 2000. The fund would receive grants from the State government, Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Corporate Social Responsibility and NGOs and a transfer of 50 per cent of the compounding fees collected under Motor Vehicles Rules and spot fines collected by the Police and Transport Department.

The transport commissioner would be the controlling authority of the fund which would be administered by the inter-departmental committee on road safety fund. The committee would be headed by the Home Secretary and comprise transport commissioner, secretary, Finance Department, ADGP (Traffic and Road Safety), Director General, Highways Department, secretaries of Transport and Health and Family Welfare. The committee would meet once in six months or as and when the necessity arises, it said.

The rules were framed in line with the Supreme Court constituted committee on road safety which directed the State government in November 2016 to set up a non-lapsable road safety fund which would have a steady flow of money from fines/compounding fees collected from traffic violations. The committee had noted that the fund should not be solely dependent on budgetary allocation which may vary according to the financial constraints of the government.