Centre will consider mandatory safety standards to check accidents: Gadkari

The Centre will consider making mandatory manufacturing of vehicle tyres to international standards and filling them with nitrogen to avoid busting to check accidents, Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said in the Rajya Sabha on Monday.

He was replying to supplementaries in the Rajya Sabha in the light of an accident involving an Uttar Pradesh Road Transport Corporation bus on the Yamuna Expressway this morning which claimed the lives of 29 lives.

Gadkari said earlier there was no information about whether tyres manufactured in India matched international standsrds. Now there is information that in the USA and other countries, silicon is added to rubber so that chances of busting are less.

In addition, nitrogen should be filled in tyres to keep them cool, he said adding the government would consider making the two requirements mandatory to check accidents.

The minister said the Yamuna Expressway was built by the Uttar Pradesh government and the Central government has nothing to do with.

"The highway is controlled by the Noida Authority and the Centre has no links with it. The chief minister has constituted a committee to go into it. We have asked the state vernment to investigate the matter," he said.

"In 2016 133 lost their lives. in 2017, over 146 people were killed in accidents, while 111 lost their lives in 2018 here," he added.

Further, he said, "Almost 30% of the driving licenses in the country are fake. We have been trying to get the Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Bill for the past one year and we will get it passed in Parliament soon."

Earlier today, Uttar Pradesh Roadways bus fell into a drain on the Yamuna Expressway resulting in the loss of lives of 29 people and leaving several others injured.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, while ordering a probe into the accident, also sought long term reommendations to avoid such accidents in the future.