60% of black spots which caused over 28,000 highway deaths rectified: RTI

Sixty per cent of black spots on national highways in India where more than 28,000 killings took place in road crashes in a period of three years have been rectified now, according to official data.

Sixty per cent of the black spots on national highways in India where more than 28,000 killings took place in road crashes in a period of three years have been rectified now, according to official data.

A total of Rs 4,512.36 crore has been spent in rectifying these black spots which led to 57,329 road crashes in 2016, 2017 and 2018, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) said in response to a query made under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

The rectifications started 2019 onwards on the black spots, which are a stretch of national highways of about 500 m where either five road accidents took place in three calendar years or 10 fatalities (in all three years combined).

The road accidents considered for qualifying a stretch as a black spot include both causing fatalities and grievous injuries, according to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH).

Noida-based RTI activist Amit Gupta had sought to know from the NHAI the state-wise data on black spots, their rectification status and cost incurred on fixing the flaws.

In its response, the NHAI stated, "A total of 3,996 black spots have been identified on National Highways maintained by the NHAI on available accident data of year 2015 to 2018."

"During 2019-20, 729 black spots were rectified, while during 2020-21, 1,103 black spots. During 2021-22 up to September 2021, 583 black spots have been rectified. Target up to March 2022 is 790 black spots and target for 2022-23 is 791 black spots," it stated.

According to the data available with the NHAI, a total of 57,329 accidents took place on the 3,996 black spots on national highways in which 28,765 people were killed.

Altogether, 2,415 (60.43 per cent) of the 3,996 black spots have been rectified, it noted.

Among states, the maximum fatalities were recorded in Tamil Nadu at 4,408 and Uttar Pradesh at 4,218, according to the data.

National capital Delhi had 31 black spots which resulted in 772 crashes and 270 fatalities during the period, it showed.

A maximum of 496 black spots are in Tamil Nadu followed by West Bengal 450, Karnataka 408, Andhra Pradesh 357, Telangana 336 and Uttar Pradesh 327, it showed.

The regional office (RO) Chennai also spent the maximum Rs 997.40 crore among states and rectified 166 such black spots, while RO Bengaluru stood second on the list with Rs 732.69 crore expenditure.