Seven persons, including a woman, were killed and 17 injured when an overloaded passenger vehicle skidded off the road and plunged into a deep gorge in hilly Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday. The accident took place on Doda-Bharth road near Ponda, some 30 kms from Doda town, when the driver of a tempo traveller lost control while negotiating a blind curve and the vehicle fell into a gorge. Seventeen persons were shifted to hospital by rescuers and the condition of some of them was stated to be critical. The tragedy is that such news reports are published almost on daily basis and there is hardly any day when someone doesn’t die or get hurt in some traffic accident.
The roads in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly in Chenab Valley and Pir Panjal division have become death traps. Every day we talk about deaths and injuries in road accidents and every day we discuss loopholes that characterize the traffic management in Jammu and Kashmir. Be it faulty road engineering and pathetic condition of roads, or for that matter the reckless and mad driving by people on the wheels, or the lax attitude of Transport and Traffic authorities — everything has conspired to make J&K a terrible place in terms of road accidents. Indeed if the frequency of traffic accidents, which is shooting up with each passing day much to the shock and awe of the people is any indicator, then it goes without saying that driving on the roads and streets here has become a massive security hazard.
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Road accidents are taking a great toll on human lives now than it was ever before. Some years back, stray incidents of road accidents would occur here and there in the state but now it is three to five accidents a day with the number of deaths and the wounded people at times exceeding the number of accidents which have turned the roads into virtual death traps. As new vehicles are being purchased with every passing day, the roads which are considered backbone for the proliferation of vehicles in any state or country, have become so constricted in the state that pedestrians find it hard to get along a road without fear of being hit by a passing vehicle. Hilly roads are another peril – not only are they in bad shape in terms of engineering, the public vehicles ply on them without any checks, which adds to the dangers.
It is an ill-devised strategy to let the population of vehicles multiply unchecked to match the number of persons in the UT in absence of the roads. In the last 20 years, the number of vehicles has increased more than ten-fold while as the space available in terms or roads as well as the road conditions has remained more or less static. The reckless driving is another main reason behind such mishaps. Transport authorities are issuing driving licenses, permits and fitness certificates without taking the requisite qualifications into consideration. The indiscriminate issuance of driving licenses to those who do not undergo proper trainings and subsequent tests for securing the licenses as per the rules makes the mess more striking. No attention is paid to the public transport services. Instead it is the greedy and unruly transporters, drivers and conductors who operate the services at their sweet will and choice. So unreasonable and undependable is the entire public transport system here that one wonders if at all anyone can call it a public utility service. It is pity that even the over-loading goes unchecked and unnoticed which also has taken a heavy toll of life in the UT. It is a cause of worry and the governments, that be, need to take the issue seriously and try to find out ways and means to minimize such fatalities.
