Alarming Record of Road Accidents: Gadkari Informs Parliament of Death Toll

New Delhi: The government informed Parliament on Friday that the number of deaths in road accidents in India increased by 2.3 percent in 2024 to over 1.77 lakh, meaning 485 people died in road accidents every day. Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha that the ‘Stockholm Declaration on Road Safety’, adopted at the Third Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in February 2020, has set a new global target of reducing deaths and injuries from road accidents by 50 percent by 2030.

Gadkari said, “As per the information received from States/Union Territories, the total number of fatalities in road accidents on all categories of roads in the country during the calendar year 2024 was 1,77,177, including data from West Bengal taken from the eDAR portal.” He said that during the calendar year 2023, police departments of states and union territories across the country reported a total of 4,80,583 road accidents, in which 1,72,890 people lost their lives and 4,62,825 were injured.

The minister said that according to ‘World Road Statistics 2024’, the road accident death rate per lakh population is 4.3 in China and 12.76 in the US, while in India it is 11.89. Gadkari said that the government has formulated a multi-pronged strategy based on the 4-‘E’s – Education, Engineering (both road and vehicle), Enforcement, and Emergency Care – to address the issue of road safety. He added that accordingly, several initiatives have been taken for road safety in the country.