Govt rolls out initiatives to curb road crashes in 100 districts

NEW DELHI: The govt has identified 100 districts reporting high number of road crashes and has rolled out ‘ Data Driven Hyperlocal Intervention (DDHI)’ to undertake measures to curb crashes and deaths. The districts are spread across 18 states — the highest (19) is in Maharashtra, followed by 18 in Uttar Pradesh and 11 in Karnataka — based on the integrated road accident data collected since 2021.

The DDHI has been conceptualised by the Centre of Excellence for Road Safety (CoERS) at IIT-Madras. While most road crashes are attributed to human error, a significant proportion is due to localised challenges. Districts have been prioritised for intervention to address these challenges.

“This initiative will adopt a bottom-up approach, empowering District Road Safety Councils (DRSCs), led by their respective chairpersons, to lead decision-making and implementation. The DDHI framework empowers councils to design targeted interventions tailored to district-specific road conditions, behavioural patterns, and geographical constraints,” an official statement issued by the CoERS said.

Addressing the launch event, Union road transport secretary V Umashankar said just policy decisions in Delhi can’t bring down the number of crashes and deaths. Interventions have to be made at the district level, he said. “Expensive solutions are always not the best solutions,” he said, highlighting the need for better analysis of the exact cause of crashes and required interventions.

The DDHI programme will involve building capacity and capability within selected districts; empowering district leadership to identify and implement critical road safety interventions; enabling sustainable, low-cost, high-impact solutions that are community-informed and data-backed; and establishing scientific impact assessment and review mechanism for the interventions taken up.