Gadkari asks private players to come forward for developing social bonds

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday asked all private sector entities to come forward for the development of social bonds, saying the corpus generated through the social contribution may be used to finance projects like the zero fatality corridor.

Addressing a virtual event, the road transport and highways minister said the private sector can utilise their corporate social responsibility (CSR) fund to address all 4E's (engineering, enforcement, education, and emergency care services) of road safety.

"The idea presented to me here today of Private capital mobilisation through social bonds, sustainability-linked bonds and pooling of CSR funds can be widely used for road safety improvement efforts. This is a welcome step," he said.

The minister said road safety can bring a huge push to the economy, especially since we lose about 3 per cent of our GDP on account of road accidents.

"I urge all private sector entities to pro-actively come forward for the development of social bonds.

"The corpus generated with your social contribution would be effectively used to finance projects such as the Zero fatality corridor and other road safety strategies on a national scale," he said.

Gadkari said he has particularly taken note of the proposal presented by the World Bank on 100 zero fatality corridors, where CSR funding can be used for developing safety intervention strategies.

He noted that a rapid expansion in the road network, motorisation and urbanisation in India has been accompanied by a rise in road accidents, resulting in injuries, fatalities, disabilities, and hospitalisation with severe socio-economic costs across the country.

Gadkari pointed out that although insurance companies are direct beneficiaries of a saved life, but unfortunately there is a very poor performance by them in this regard and there is a huge scope of improvement in approving claims and providing support to families, who have faced losses.

The minister also emphasised that the private sector can invest via the PPP model for the establishment of driving training centres, vehicle fitness and pollution check centres, which can also help in the successful rollout of the vehicle scrapping policy.

He said the ministry is developing 22 access-controlled Greenfield expressways, expanding the width of roads and bridges, removing the congestion points and is improving geometry.

At the third Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety held in Stockholm in Sweden, Gadkari said, "We had committed to reduce 50 per cent of accident deaths by 2030. My vision is to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in road accident deaths by 2025 and zero accident-related fatalities in the country by 2030.

In India, National Highways and State Highways account for about 5 per cent of the total road length, he said, adding that these highways alone account for 61 per cent of road accident deaths, which is an extremely large share.

The minister said the working-age group of 18 to 60 accounted for a share of 84 per cent of the total road accident deaths.

Gadkari pointed out that 50 per cent of road accidents are due to road engineering problems, while a balance of 15 to 20 per cent of the responsibility goes to drivers and 10 to 15 per cent with automobile engineering.

India ranks first in the number of road accident deaths across the 199 countries reported in the World Road Statistics, while as per the W-H-O Global Report on Road Safety, India accounts for almost 11 per cent of the accident-related deaths in the world.

In India, 1.5 lakh people die and about 5 lakh people are injured in 5 lakh road accidents every year.