Parliament panel suggests elevating highways to lower accidents

New Delhi: A Parliamentary Standing Committee has recommended raising the height of national highways to prevent stray cattle/wildlife roaming on roads.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport Tourism and Culture headed by Rajya Sabha member (YSRCP) MP V Vijayasai Reddy made this suggestion considering the high number of crashes and fatalities on the highways.

"The Committee feels that the Ministry/NHAI should work on controlling access to National Highways to the extent possible since doing so allows vehicles to travel at faster speeds, with lesser chances of accidents as merging traffic is controlled at entry points. The Committee recommends that the Ministry may examine the feasibility of raising the height of National Highways to generally control uncontrolled free access to the NHs. The Committee feels that this could lower the incidents of stray cattle/wildlife roaming on the NHs as well," the panel in its report tabled in Parliament said.

The panel further said, “ There should be some mechanism to monitor the frequency of incidents of wildlife/ cattle straying on roads even when the same has not caused any fatal accident yet, and proactive steps may be taken to curb the same.”

The Committee also recommended helicopter landing facilities be developed at toll plazas across the country at a certain defined distance, to enable urgent medical assistance to accident victims.

The ministry of road transport and highways of India (MoRTH) in its response said it has notified that the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and the National Highways Logistics Management Limited (NHLML) were developing wayside amenities across national highways & expressways wherein a few WSA sites in Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, Trans Rajasthan & Trans Haryana has the infrastructure provision for helicopter landing facilities.