The government is considering setting up a centralized ambulance service by the National Highways Development Authority (NHAI) on over 140,000 km of national highways, two officials aware of the development.
This is because national highways have emerged as one of the biggest killers, accounting for over 40% of road accidents in a year, an official said.
A National Ambulance Service dedicated exclusively to transporting trauma and pre-hospital care accident victims on all national highways is considered an important part of the plan to make Indian roads safer.
The National Crime Records Bureau says that Indian road accidents killed 156,000 people in 2021 or 457 lives per day. According to the Road Ministry, there were 366,138 road accidents in 2020, in which 131,714 people died and 348,279 people were injured.
“NHAI already runs ambulance services on various national highways built and managed by it. In fact, around 2,000 ambulances are already deployed on the highways. But now the need is felt that ambulances should function as a universal service with quick response time,” said one of the government officials cited above. Both asked not to be named as the plan was still in the works. being done.
The official said that with NHAI one of the highest allocations in the budget for 2022-23, it should not be difficult to invest in the important task of making Indian roads safer.
The total expenditure on the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways for 2022-23 is estimated at approx. 2 trillion- 52% more than the revised estimates of 2021-22. Out of the total allocation to the ministry, the highest (67%) is for NHAI 1.34 trillion.
Under the scheme, NHAI has started increasing the fleet of ambulances. It has recently procured 200 state-of-the-art ambulances and is looking for further purchases after studying the actual requirement on the highways.
In the next phase, officials said, a plan to create a separate department within the NHAI to manage the ambulance service would be worked out. This department will coordinate with the provision and movement of trauma relief services not only on highways managed by NHAI but also on highways being built and managed by private sector developers.
As per the current rules, developers and government agencies that manage and maintain National Highways (NHs) will have to ensure that patrolling vehicles and ambulances are available 24×7. These vehicles are to be equipped with GPS and Vehicle Tracking System (VTS) for rapid deployment in case of emergency. Ambulances, patrol vehicles and cranes are to be deployed at every toll plaza.
But road experts say these rules are rarely followed as relief measures sometimes take several hours which can be critical in some cases.
Queries sent to MoRTH and NHAI ministry seeking details of the scheme remained unanswered.
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