Several measures will be taken during the 12th five year plan period to check the growing number of road accidents in the country, road transport and highways minister CP Joshi said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the national road safety council meeting held here, he said his ministry has proposed setting up of GIS systems for a more accurate database on road accidents.

“My ministry has proposed setting up of these systems in each of the states/UTs under the 12th five-year-plan. This would help in identification of the accident prone stretches and black-spots so that these can be taken up for engineering measures and public awareness to mitigate the causes of road accidents on a scientific basis at these spots,” he said.

“The state and district road safety councils will need to meet regularly to monitor the measures undertaken to combat road accidents at these spots,” he added.

He also said that the centre will set up more world class motor driving institutes to train drivers and generate awareness about issues of road safety.

According to ministry data, every year over 1.34 lakh people die due to road accidents in the country which is highest in the world.

The minister said the centre had recently launched a scheme namely ‘central assistance to states / UTs for ‘strengthening public transport system’ with a view to ensure that the quality of service rendered by the public transport system matches with the rising aspirations of the public.

“Though we have received proposals from some of the states and they have been sanctioned, the response is not that encouraging,” he said. He also advised the states to apply for the financial assistance under this scheme on priority basis.

Joshi said that his ministry has undertaken a very important IT project as one of the mission mode project under national e-governance programme which envisages creation of state and national register of driving licence and registration certificates. Once the national and state registers are in place, data will be made available on portal with secure access. Such data can also be accessed at the check posts to ensure that taxes have been paid and all documents are in order.

The minister said that another important scheme is the issuance of documents like driving license and registration certificate in smart card mode. This would definitely bring uniformity and inter-State operability of such documents. “I would, therefore, request those state governments who are yet to implement the smart card project to kindly complete the work in a time bound manner,” he said.