Jammu, Nov 17:All J&KPassengers’ Welfare Association (AJKPWA) held a meeting under the leadership ofits president Pt RC Sharma expressed shock and grief over the recent accidentin which 39 passengers killed and 17 injured, whereas accused the governmentfor deliberately ignoring frequent occurrence of the road accidents in J&K,which clearly indicates the failure of UT administration. Besides, demanded toconstitute a higher level ‘Reasons Finding Committee of Road Accidents &its Prevention’ headed by Chief Secretary.
Whileaddressing a meeting, president Pt RC Sharma said that UT government must openits eyes over the frequent occurring of road accidents as it is the prime dutyand responsibility of the UT administration in toto. He said that frequentrecurring of accidents in the J&K UT is a matter of concern butunfortunately the LG administration is not paying even a little attentiontowards the lives of the innocent people. He said that roads have beenconverted into slaughtering machines and the vehicles are being taken asfeeders.
Launching ascathing attack on the government, Pt Sharma said that the government has utterly failed to contain such accidents.He further added, “Despite the public outcry and loss of precious lives infrequent road accidents, the government has failed to do anything with regardto the safety of the public.” He suggested the government that there is a direneed to fix responsibility for this unfortunate incident and also that happenedin past too. He demanded effective measures to ensure public safety, ratherthan making tall claims on so-called development in J&K in media.
The AJKPWAsuggested the government to constitute a higher level committee ‘Reasons Finding Committee of Road Accidents & its Prevention’headed by Chief Secretary and other members be included areCommissioner/Secretary Transport, Commissioner/Secretary R&B,Commissioner/Secretary Home, Commissioner/Secretary Planning,Commissioner/Secretary Disaster Management, Director General of Police, head ofTraffic Police and members of Passengers’ Association, besides othersstakeholders. He said that it is matter of shame for government the road terrorhas become more dangerous than terrorists’ terror in J&K.
He asked thegovernment to grant Rs 25 lakhs as an ex-gratia in the favour of next of kin of each deceased and Rs 05lakhs to the injured. He said that the owner of the vehicle must come out forthe help of the accident victims as he has earned lot of money from thepassenger fraternity.
Others who spoke in the meeting included SS Jamwal, Jaspal Singh,Ashwani Sharma, Sunny Kumar, etc.
