Hyderabad: Once fatal, the Hyderabad-Bijapur Corridor (a 118-kilometre stretch) from the APPA Junction to the Karnataka border is now much safer with a 38.1% reduction in accidents. In 2014, the road was declared as the model ‘Road Safety Demonstration Corridor’, and before that there were reported 143 crashes that claimed 84 lives, according to the study titled ‘Road Safety Good Practices in India’.
The study outlines a blueprint to half the number of road fatalities in India by showcasing the success stories of interventions that have contributed to a measurable and significant reduction in road crash fatalities on target road corridors across the country.
In 2014, the Telangana Roads and Buildings Department, with support from the SaveLIFE Foundation, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), and the World Bank Group, declared the stretch a Road Safety Demonstration Corridor. P Ravinder Rao, engineer-in-chief of state roads, came up with a blend of the ‘4 Es of road safety’: Engineering, Enforcement, Education, and Emergency Care, which helped in the reduction of road accidents by 38.1% reduction in road crash deaths between 2014 and 2018.
Thanks to the collaboration between the government of Telangana and the World Bank, which invested a joint fund of USD 4.3 million (over Rs 35.8 crore) to make the road safer.
The study also highlights that the ‘No Helmet-No Petrol’ campaign, launched in Adilabad, has helped with a behavioral change of motorists, though it shared no data to support the statement.
