The Punjab Cabinet on Wednesday decided to set up a Rs. 100 crore Road Safety Fund, in accordance with the Supreme Court guidelines of 2016, to enhance public safety on the roads and to minimise road fatalities.The fund would be set up by diverting 50% of the compounding fee collected by road enforcement agencies i.e Police and the Transport departments, an official spokesperson disclosed after a cabinet meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh. The proposed fund will be on the pattern of a similar fund created by Kerala in 2007.Besides spreading road safety awareness, the fund will be utilised to enable automatic detection of over-speeding and overloading of vehicles. It will also be used for installation of GPS system for monitoring of passenger and goods public carriers, as well as automatic vehicles fitness certification machines. The money would also go into making available various devices to the police force to ensure road safety, such as body cameras, speed radars and breath analyzers. Besides, this fund would also be used for providing rescue and post-accident care services.
The decision came on a day when the cabinet gave its approval to the new transport policy for the state. Under the new policy, it is envisaged that each operator, within 6 months of grant of permit, shall ensure that his buses are equipped with GPS tracking system and RFID, as specified by the Punjab Government, to enable monitoring of movement, speed, stoppages and regularity of the service of buses on permitted routes, by the State Government, as well as by the general public.Operators would also have to ensure that CCTV cameras are installed inside the buses plying in the State and entering the State, to minimise chances of untoward incidents inside the buses and to ensure detection and appropriate action in case of such incidents. In addition, he would need to install panic button that triggers an SMS/Call to nearest police station along with GPS Location of the bus, and would have to undertake to be part of a common digital platform with requisite devices in buses to enable common tickets/passes for passengers travelling on buses in the State.
The upcoming transport scheme also emphasizes the road safety measures under Section 215 (A), Motor Vehicle Act, 1988, requiring the state government to ensure that toll plazas or other appropriate stretches of State Highways and National Highways shall have mandatory lanes for commercial vehicles with built-in weigh bridges. Overloaded vehicles shall be stopped and allowed to pass only after excess load has been shifted to another vehicle. These would be in addition to any challans, penalties or punishments prescribed for overloading by any other law for the time being in force.The government, as per the new scheme, would endeavour to develop facilities, on an outsourced basis, to set up an automatic detection of over-speeding and issuance of challans based on speed radars and vehicle number plate readers, along State Highways and National Highways. The State government shall also develop appropriate facilities, on an outsourced basis, to set up Adequate Automatic Computerised Testing Stations for conducting annual fitness check of commercial vehicles. The State Government shall endeavour to ensure that challans are issued by Police and Transport Departments only on online handheld machines linked to a central/cloud server.