'Need to upgrade technology of road engineering': Bali

Himachal Pradesh Transport Minister GS Bali today stressed on the need to upgrade the technology of road engineering and structuring to suit the needs of hill areas.
"There is a need to upgrade the technology of road engineering and structuring the parameters to be designed with specific references to the hill areas," he said.
A meeting of the Group of Ministers held in New Delhi today to address the issue of public transportation in the hills.
The Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Ministry has constituted this group of ministers to address the issue of public transportation in hill areas. Bali is the Chairman of this group.

He stressed on the need to create awareness among the masses regarding the road safety measures in the country and added that focus should be given to educate the school children.
NGOs and civil society groups could also play a pivotal role in this awareness campaign, he added.

He urged the Centre to provide sufficient funds to make this campaign relevant.
"There was also a need to provide common platform to issue permit particularly for hilly states such as Assam, Tripura, Manipur and Meghalaya to facilitate the transporters and tourists as well," the minister said.
Sanjay Mitra, Secretary of National Highways said 10 percent of allocated funds for road construction had been made compulsory to be spent on adopting road safety measures.

He requested the participants of different hill states to come forward and form a nodal agency in their respective states so that effective measures could be adopted to mitigate the road accidents.
It was also unanimously decided to create regional permit system in hilly states for a free movement of traffic.
The next meeting of this group would be held in Assam.