In a move that could bolster resuscitation of road accident victims, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has drafted a request for proposal for supply, operation and maintenance of incident management services (IMS) for the entire highway network in the country.
The aim of this system is to minimise the impact of accidents on national highways and restore normal capacity and safety levels to all affected road facilities as efficiently as possible.
Until now, this system was only available on the national highways (NH) which are managed by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).
In an office memorandum issued on Monday (3 April), the Ministry said it is proposing to extend the IMS scheme to all the national highways in the country, with initial emphasis on high traffic corridors and the states with difficult terrains.
India has a total of 1.45 lakh km of national highways, out of which about 65,000 km are managed by NHAI, about 7,000 km are managed by National Highways Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd. (NHIDCL) and about 66,000 km are with the Roads wing of MoRTH.
The IMS operated by the NHAI is coordinated through the 1033 nationwide helpline, which entails a set of coordinated activities initiated when an accident occurs. The operator identifies relevant agencies and liaises with them. The operators run 24×7 route patrols, cranes and ambulances on the said stretches.
One Accident Every Minute
In India, road traffic injury is one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity — there is one road accident every minute, and one fatal accident every fourth minute.
During 2021, a total 412,432 accidents were recorded in the country, of which, 128,825 (31.2 per cent) took place on the national highways, including expressways. Similarly, out of total 142,163 fatal accidents reported in 2021, 50,953 (35.8 per cent) were on national highways.
There are as many as 35 accidents per thousand vehicles, and the drivers involved in road crashes are in the age group of 20-40 years. Two-wheelers and cars contribute to 50 per cent of the total accidents. Other than road engineering issues, most of the accidents are caused by the driver’s fault.
Road crashes cost approximately one to three per cent of a country’s GDP.
New Requirements
The request for proposal (RFP) has outlined the modalities for roll-out of the IMS scheme to all the NHs in the country. This is to be done “on priority” by establishing IMS monitoring units staffed by skilled manpower.
“The response time of maximum 30 minutes for the ambulances and cranes to reach the site may be kept initially, which may further be reduced by integration of 1033 helpline with state 108/112 helplines. To ensure this, a close liaison with the corresponding state’s EMS (Emergency Medical Service) network is obligatory,” it added.
The RFP noted that the ambulances alone are grossly ineffective in initiating a post-crash response, as the victims are more than often trapped inside the crashed vehicle and need to be released with professional powered tools to ensure prompt emergency care.
As such, the IMS system should have provision of gas cutters and hydraulic rescue tools in the route patrol cars and small/medium cranes along with hydraulic towing arm and road clearing equipment staffed with trained manpower.
The specifications for the ambulances, patrol cars and rescue cranes are to be standardised to remove ambiguity and ensure uniformity in form and function.
The Ministry has sought comments by 15 April on the provisions of the draft RFP so that further deliberations may be made to finalise the documents, such that the scheme of IMS is rolled out across all states in the current financial year.
