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INR 300 crore for rectifying accident-prone Roads

In a bid to curb road accidents, the State government on Thursday announced a special project to rectify road engineering defects along ‘Black Spots’ or accident-prone stretches across Tamil Nadu. Announcing this in the budget, Finance Minister O. Panneerselvam said the fund for conducting road safety campaigns would be doubled and the exercise intensified.

Besides INR 65 crore for road safety measures, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa ordered allocation of INR 300 crore, of which INR 150 crore would be released in 2014-15, for attending to the ‘Black Spots’ with proper civil engineering works. “This allocation of INR 215 crore towards road safety will be the highest ever funding by any State in a year,” Mr. Panneeerselvam said.

After Tamil Nadu topped the country in fatal road accidents in 2012, the State government sanctioned INR 60 crore a year for implementing road safety measures and also improved lighting, signage and accident relief measures along highways. Going by the State Crime Records Bureau statistics, 16,175 persons were killed in 5,072 road accidents in 2012. After sustained road safety campaign, the number of fatalities came down to 15,563 the next year, police sources said.

On the law and order front, Mr. Pannerselvam said the police were effectively maintaining public order and the force was constantly upgrading its capacity to tackle emerging challenges by adopting best Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and Crisis Management Plans. A sum of INR 5,186 crore was allocated for the Police department in 2014-15 compared to INR 3,184.47 crore in 2010-11. With effect from 26.09.2013, the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network Systems that was initially launched in Tiruvallur, Ariyalur and Sivaganga districts and Coimbatore city was extended to the rest of Tamil Nadu. He said 24,503 posts of police personnel were created in the last three years. Besides, 10,099 persons were selected for the newly established Tamil nadu Special Police Youth Brigade, the first of its kind in the country.

Source-On Request