BHUBANESWAR: Wary of the spurt in road accidents, the state transport department has constituted a six-member committee to devise road safety measures. Headed by a joint commissioner, the committee has an executive engineer from the works department, a deputy superintendent of police, a medical officer in the rank of assistant surgeon, a junior lecturer or block education officer and another transport official.The transport department said the committee will have assigned roles and responsibilities to check road accidents. "We have included representatives from transport, works (road engineering), health, education and police in the committee because all those departments have equal roles to play in road safety," a senior transport officer said.The committee will hold regular meetings with state road safety council, coordinate with different departments for implementation of orders passed by the Supreme Court committee on road safety, ensure execution of the orders passed by the ministry of road transport and highways and analyse reasons and remedies pertaining to accidents. "We, as per the direction of the Supreme Court committee on road safety, already constituted a lead agency in April to oversee road safety measures in Odisha . The committee members will be part of the lead agency, whose prime responsibility is to take measures to minimise accidents," the officer said.Despite massive awareness campaigns and enforcement activities, fatalities due to road accidents in Odisha have showed no signs of slowing down. deaths due to accidents shot up to 2672 in the first six months of 2018 from 2497 cases recorded during the same period in 2017, a transport department official said.Sources said a total of 4790 people had died in accidents across the state in 2017 as against 4463 in 2016. Transport officials said nearly 70 per cent of the deaths occurred on the national highways this year. Wary of the disturbing trend, the state police headquarters recently appealed to the state home department to introduce highway patrolling on Jaleswar-Ichhapuram, Bhubaneswar-Puri, Sambalpur-Sohela, Manguli-Sambalpur and Sambalpur-Rourkela stretches.Director general of police R P Sharma said the fresh appointment of 16 sub-inspectors (traffic) in the Odisha motor vehicle department (OMVD) would add teeth to the enforcement activities of the transport department. The sub-inspectors completed their training at the Biju Patnaik State Police Academy (BPSPA) on Tuesday. Sharma, while attending the passing-out parade of the new recruits, urged them to carry out regular enforcement activities against violators of road rules.

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