Ruchir Sharma’s book “Breakout Nations” may not be the only scholarly work which explodes the myth of India’s growth rate. A 60- page interim report of the national transport development policy committee headed by an eminent economist Rakesh Mohan is yet another document which estimates that the cost of rising graph of road accidents alone may account for 2 percent of the GDP. If one were to add other transport related accidents, including rail and aviation, the cost may be more.

In a startling revelation which exposes a complete indifference on the part of those responsible to manage the transportation sector, the report points out that more than 1,62,000 people died in transportation related accident in 2010 - that is about 445 deaths a day. “International experience suggests that for each transportation death, one can expect 3-5 permanent disabilities and 15-20 hospitalisation", the report says, adding that by implication,  at least 1500 people are disabled and 7000 hospitalised every day.

The committee comprising 20 members including chairman railway board, top bureaucrats and experts of the transportation sector,  was at pains to point out that with the road accidents increasing by 8 percent in the past decade, the traffic situation, particularly on the roads, would be quite scary in near future. Referring to the heightened consciousness about safety in Sweden which passed road safety bill, the committee notes that in Sweden the bill clearly stated, “ the responsibility for or loss of health in the road transport system rests with the person responsible for the design of that system”.

“Business as usual will not work” the report warns and says that it would be futile to expand the existing transportation system without making safety changes on the basis of scientific research. The Rakesh Mohan committee also points out that the highways and state ways be designed after factoring in the possibility of phenomenal increase in the road traffic. The committee suggested various measures, institutional, legislative and innovative, to be taken by the union government and the states to reduce the number of transport related accidents and its fall out.