Ensuring Safety in Public Works - Inputs Sought

Earlier this week an under construction bridge fell in Varanasi taking away 19 lives. The UP Police had sent multiple letters to UP State Bridge Corporation for not following traffic safety regulations during construction. Similar accidents keep happening all across India from time to time.

With this post we would like to seek your inputs on how can standards be set and enforced for public works such that such accidents are greatly minimised.

Below are the key issues, root causes and solutions as identified by you for the current state of Public Safety in India. We will then put together the whitepaper and share with key stake holders in Central and State Governments so some of these can be implemented on the ground.

Public safety – Key solutions

1.Traffic rules should be strictly enforced
2. Repeat offenders should be strictly penalized, leading to cancellation of driving license and imprisonment
3.Over speeding in particular should attract fines up to Rs. 5000
4.Fines for traffic rule violations should be increased by many folds
5.Religious places should only allow a certain number of devotees everyday
6.Volunteers/administration should take the help of CCTV cameras to manage the crowd well
7.Religious festivals should be planned to the minutest details
8.Taking safety clearances should be made compulsory for organizing religious gatherings/festivals
9.Areas should be designated along the banks of rivers for the holy dip and visarjan, which should be manned barriers and home guards
10.Only a certain number of people should be allowed to take the idol for immersion inside water and the rest of the crowd should just watch from a distance
11.A small sub-department should be created to act on complaints of uncovered drains and manholes
12.Raids must be conducted to bust the unlicensed fire cracker factory ring
13.Municipality should make sure that all the city streets have street lights installed
14.Maintenance of street lights should be outsourced to private vendors
15.An overhauling of the electricity transmission system should be done to modernize it and prevent fatality causing accidents
16.A plan should be initiated to convert all electricity lines to underground wiring
17.Footpaths should be made encroachment free for pedestrians
18.The vendors found encroaching the footpath should be punished by confiscating their goods
19.Commercial driving licenses should be given only after the applicant passes the detailed written tests about traffic signs, symbols and warnings
20.Emergency medical services should be privatized and brought up to international standards

Public Safety - Root Causes

1.Negligence and carelessness of the city authorities is a major root cause
2.There is a lack of Traffic Law Enforcement
3.There is an absence of general Awareness amongst Road Users about Road Safety and Traffic Discipline
4.People disregard traffic rules
5.Glitches appear in major traffic signals quite often
6.Emergency medical services for accidents are not up to the international standards
7.High rate of illiteracy amongst commercial vehicle drivers who are unable to read/comprehend traffic signs and warnings
8.Speeding of buses competing for business volumes in urban area of the country
9.Religious places are mismanaged
10.Negligence of Officials who are supervising the Temple Dharshan and lack of proper queue management among the visitors
11.There is no set limit to the number of people that could visit a religious place on a particular day
12.Religious festivals are not well planned
13.The number of people that turn up for the holy dip are huge
14.Manhole cover are stolen by rag pickers
15.The maintenance of the street light is not carried out regularly
16.The electrical transmission system is technologically very old
17.Load bearing capacity of the bridges has been decreasing
18.Corrupt officials allow overloaded heavy vehicles to move freely without any checking
19.Encroachment of roads and footpaths by vendors.

Public Safety - Key Issues

1.Hundreds of people die in India every day due to road accidents
2.Many cases of stampede are reported from religious places
3.Haphazardly organized religious festivals lead to many fatalities
4.Many people drown during the holy dip and visarjan
5.Uncovered drain and manholes cause various serious accidents
6.Unlicensed fireworks factories house many fire accidents every year
7.No lights on the roads causes many accidents
8.Very old buildings and illegal constructions pose a threat
9.Hanging electrical lines by electricity boards. more