Governor N. N. Vohra has expressed grief over the loss of lives in a bus accident which was on its way to Basantgarh in Udhampur district. In a condolence message the Governor has conveyed his sympathies to the members of the bereaved families and prayed for peace to the departed souls. He wished speedy recovery to those injured in this accident. The Governor has announced ex-gratia relief of Rs. 1 lakh each to the kith and kin of those who died in this tragic accident.The Raj Bhavan Spokesperson stated that the Governor has called for sustained efforts to substantially bring down the incidence of fatal road accidents in the State. He expressed serious concern about the urgent need to devote systemic attention to this vital problem and directed the Chief Secretary to urgently review the status of implementation of Road safety Action Plan. It may be recalled that the Governor had fixed a clear timeframe for the implementation of Road Safety Action Plan in Jammu and Kashmir in a high level meeting held in the Civil Secretariat on 14th February 2015, during the period of Governor’s Rule before installation of the PDP-BJP Government.
The Governor directed that all the concerned enforcement agencies should sternly deal with all cases of overloading and other traffic violations and no unfit vehicle should be allowed to ply on the roads under any circumstances. He particularly urged the DGP and IGP Traffic to enforce stringent measures to check overloading of transport vehicles, check over speeding and carry out a complete verification of all those who drive buses and trucks on the accident prone roads to particularly assess whether they are trained to ply vehicles in hilly areas.