THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF ROAD TRANSPORT AND HIGHWAYS
(SHRI MAHADEO SINGH KHANDELA)
(a) & (b) Road safety works are taken up on a continuing basis on National Highways through
State Governments, National Highways Authority of India, etc. This Ministry also sponsors
various Research Schemes related to road safety, such as (i) Establishment of a system for
identification and rectification of accident black spots (ii) Evaluation of Road Accident
costs, and (iii) Development of recording methods for road accident data, and has published
Manual for Safety in Road Design.
(c ) The procedure for granting access permission to a National Highway has been brough out
in Ministry’s guidelines e.g.(i) RW/NH-33023/19/99-DO.III dated 17.10.2003 titled “Norms for
the Access for Fuel stations, Service stations and Rest Areas along National Highways (ii) RW/
NH-33023/19/99-DO-III dated 31.08.2000 titled “System Improvement for Installation of Petrol
/Diesel/Gas-retail outlets and service-stations as well as access to private properties along
National Highways. Briefly, the field units of Ministry’s executing agencies examine and
forward the proposal for approval of the Ministry. After signing of license deed in the
Ministry, the NOC is issued by the field units of executing agencies.
(d) The number of permissions granted for the access of petrol pumps/retail outlets to
National Highways during each of the last three years and the current year is as under:
2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 (till date)
518 402 259 111
As regards entry permission/access to National Highways, either through any vehicle or on foot
by a group of five or more persons, the provisions of the Control of National Highways (Land
and traffic ) Act 2002 shall apply. The number of permissions given under this category is not
maintained by Ministry. This information is held by the National Highway Administrations.
(e) There is no proposal to decentralize the powers for grant of such permission.
(f) No Sir. Road accidents are mainly caused due to a number of factors such as driver’s
fault, mechanical defects in the vehicles, fault of pedestrians, bad road, bad weather,
cattle, fallen trees etc. Other factors that contribute to road accidents are increase in
vehicular population, increase in population, heterogeneous traffic, modern high speed
vehicles, increase in road space, etc. It is not possible to say that the irregularities
and other cases of corruption in road transport system are some of the reasons of high
incidence of road accidents.
(g ) Does not arise in view of answer to (f) above.
