Help accident victims, get ₹25,000 in UP: What is Rah-Veer scheme?

The UP government has launched the Centre's Rah-Veer scheme to reward citizens who help road accident victims. Learn how good samaritans are selected and recognised under this road safety initiative

Amid the rising number of road accidents, the Uttar Pradesh government on Monday rolled out a Central initiative to reward citizens who help road accident victims reach a hospital within an hour, reported The Times of India.

 

The initiative, called the Rah-Veer or Good Samaritan Scheme, is part of the Centre’s broader effort to promote road safety. Announced by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) under the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, the scheme’s rules were revised earlier this year, raising the reward for ‘good samaritans’.

 

Apart from Uttar Pradesh, other states like Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttarakhand, and Nagaland have also implemented the scheme to encourage bystanders to help road accident victims. 

 

What is Rah-Veer scheme?

Under the Rah-Veer scheme, any citizen who saves the life of a victim of a motor vehicle accident by providing immediate assistance and transporting them to a hospital within the golden hour (one hour) will be rewarded ₹25,000.

 

If multiple people assist in saving the life of an accident victim, the award will be distributed equally among them. Likewise, if more than one person helps save multiple victims, the reward will be ₹25,000 per victim saved, subject to a maximum of ₹25,000 per ‘good samaritan’.

 

Importance of Rah-Veer scheme

The need for such a scheme is emphasised by the alarming road accident statistics. In 2023, road accidents in India rose 4.2 per cent year-on-year to 480,583, claiming an all-time high of 172,890 lives, despite increased spending on road safety infrastructure.

 

Road accident deaths rose 2.6 per cent compared with 2022, and accidents caused injuries to 462,825 people, a 4.4 per cent increase, MoRTH said in a report titled ‘Road Accidents in India 2023’.

 

It added that fatal accidents increased from 155,781 in 2022 to 160,509 in 2023, accounting for 33.4 per cent of total accidents. A fatal accident is one that results in two or more deaths. 

Of the 160,509 fatal accidents in 2023:

• 57,467 (35.8 per cent) accidents occurred on national highways.
• 36,595 (22.8 per cent) accidents occurred on state highways.
• 66,447 (41.4 per cent) accidents occurred on other roads.

 

Overspeeding on roads remained the leading cause of deaths in 2023, responsible for 68 per cent, while driving on the wrong side accounted for 5.5 per cent. Two-wheeler users accounted for 44.8 per cent of all fatalities, with pedestrians accounting for nearly 20 per cent of all road crash deaths. Over 9,489 children lost their lives in road accidents during the year, too.

 

According to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, these figures, on average, translate “into 1,317 accidents and 474 deaths every day or 55 accidents and 20 deaths every hour in the country”.

 

How to get Rah-Veer reward?

If a good samaritan helps an accident victim and promptly informs the police, the police will verify details with the attending doctor and issue an official acknowledgment on their letterhead. This document will record the good samaritan’s name, contact details, address, location, date and time of the incident, along with a brief description of how the accident victim was assisted. A copy of the official acknowledgment will be given to the samaritan, and another sent to the District-Level Appraisal Committee, chaired by the District Magistrate, for consideration of the Rah-Veer reward.

 

Similarly, suppose the good Samaritan takes the victim directly to a hospital. In that case, the hospital will share the details with the police, who will then issue the acknowledgment following the standard format.

Following this procedure, the reward amount will be directly transferred to the citizen’s account.  The scheme also provides for 10 national-level awards of ₹1,00,000 each for the 'most worthy' good samaritans. Recipients for the same will be selected from among those who received awards throughout the year.