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NT Bureau
Chennai, Jan 22:

        State Transport Minister K N Nehru today said there was a need to increase the crew strength of the State Transport Department in keeping with the ever- increasing vehicle population.

        The increasing road traffic accidents and loss of human lives today dominated the Question Hour of the State assembly.

        Legislators cutting across partylines expressed serious concern over the increasing fatal accidents.

        The members wanted to know the initiative taken by the government to bring down the accident rate. They also called for better planning and action in this regard.

        In his reply, Minister K N Nehru said the State now had a 90- lakh- strong vehicle population. 'About 5000 vehicles are registered every day. The current crew strength of the department was structured at a time when the State had about 30-35 lakh vehicles', Nehru said and added that with the support of the members, the increased crew strength would facilitate better traffic management.

        Nehru said the Highways Department had identified about 300 accident- prone spots in the State. Works are underway in 50 places to strengthen the roads and make it less vulnerable to accidents.

        Roads under Union classification were being upgraded as State roads. State highways converted into National highways in an effort to bring down accidents. Licences of those who were involved in drunken driving were cancelled. Government would also consider cancelling the licences of violators of other traffic laws.

        Road safety week and other initiatives involving students were being to create awareness on safe driving.

        Last year, about 7,549 lives were saved from road traffic accidents. More emergency medical outposts would become operational.

        They would be better equipped to handle emergency cases. More breath analysers would be bought to detect drunken driving. Efforts would be made to quickly settle compensation of victims of accidents involving government buses.

        'There is actually a drop in the rate of accidents by 0.6 percentage in the State', Minister said. Gnanasekaran (Congress), G K Mani (PMK), O Pannerselvam (AIADMK), Bala Bharathy (CPM), Kannapan (MDMK) spoke on the issue and sought better action to curb accidents.