5000 lives lost during the last five years with a life dying in every eight hours in dreaded accidents in Uttarakhand
In Uttarakhand road accidents have become the order of the day with majority of the accidental tragedies occuring during raining seasons when majority of the mountains come down crumbling on roads with tons of rubbles making the roads squeezed, even boulders falling on running vehicles, accidents through vehicles slipping, through speed driving, over driving hours of drivers, drivers driving after consuming liquor, careless driving, non availability of sign boards on blind turns on mountain roads and highways, squeezed roads desperately needing their widening, bad condition of buses usually not checked adequately before going on long journeys, passengers gossipping with drivers, over loading of buses n passenger vehicles etc. There have been maximum incidents of vehicles and buses carrying marriage participants involved in fatal accidents claiming several lives. Even vehicles carrying school children have fallen in gorge leading to fatalities and severe injuries of children. During Chardham Yatra season too good number of accidents take place with tourists n pilgrims from various parts of the country succumbing to these deadly accidents. The recent case pertains to about 26 pilgrims/ tourists of Madhya Pradesh, several of them children n adolescents as well who died in a deadly accident near Damta on Gangotri Highway when a bus carrying thirty two pilgrims of Madhya Pradesh fell into the gorge. According to the driver who survived the faulty steering of the bus led to this accident as he lost control of the steering. This is indeed shocking. The bus in question had already taken two rounds on this journey route and this was the third one, obviously would not have been checked by the concerned mechanical/ technical staff to detect the glitch/ fault in the steering apart from other negligence. This is a usual practice in Uttarakhand depots we believe. Moreover, it has been found as per the tweet of Harish Rawat Congress leader n former CM that the bus was hired for the journey, obviously meaning that negligence have been exercised in the process. There are hundreds of other reasons that lead to these fatal accidents one being over loading of Max taxies, n buses and the transport staff erroneously negligent or arbitrarily hand in globe with the taxi and bus drivers and owners after their palms being greased. What is shocking about these accidents is that in the past 5 years about 5000 people had succumbed to these deadly accidents in Uttarakhand. As per the tweets of eminent social activist, working for the protection of environment of Uttarakhand and an extremely enlightened citizen who is always engaged in his social responsibilities with due commitment, diligence and concern Dr. Anoop Nautiyal : We have close to 5000 lives in road accidents in Uttarakhand during the last five years. The number of injured even higher. All stake holders including authorities and drivers need to be sensitised to minimise deaths and injuries due to road accidents in the state adding further that in a very accident, one life is being lost in every eight hours and we have been failing in controlling this deadly menace. All the stake holders should come on one platform to work unitedly to stop this deadly trend of increasing road accidents in Uttarakhand tweeted Anoop Nautiyal.
The worst aspect of these tragic accidents is that the financial compensation accorded to the bereaved families of the deceased and the injured is merely Rs one lakh and 50 thousand respectively. This unambiguously reflects the hard fact that the cost of a hard lucked person dying in an accident so brutally is merely Rs one lakh n those injured even grievously, merely Rs fifty thousand. In certain cases of those who die in accidents in taxis, hired vans or private vehicles etc hardly receive any financial compensation. This is the most tragic anguishing and traumatic aspect of the bereaved families many of whom are poor, hapless and from villages.
