Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity on Thursday demanded Tk 10,000 crore in the upcoming national budget, as well as an economic code, to ensure safety on roads across the country.
There is no economic code for measures to prevent road accidents, it said, demanding the budgetary allocation for providing training to drivers, raising public awareness, providing treatment and financial assistance to people affected by road accidents, and to introduce an economic code, reports UNB.
Leaders of the organization said the government is now taking various steps to reduce road accidents, but the scenario is different when it comes to the national budget, as the budgetary allocation to ensure road safety is inadequate.
Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity made the demand while addressing a roundtable discussion titled “Safe Roads and Our Responsibilities,” held at the National Press Club to mark the 5th World Safe Road Week.
Jatri Kalyan Samity also announced a 15-point proposal on necessary steps to reduce fatalities on roads.
Citing World Health Organization (WHO) statistics, Jatri Kalyan Samity Secretary General Mozammel Haque Chowdhury, who chaired the seminar, said around 1.2 million people die and 20-50 million more are injured in accidents across the globe every year.
Casualties in lower and middle-income countries are higher (21.5 and 19.5 in every 100,000, respectively) than in developed countries (10.3 in every 100,000), he said.
Mozammel added that around 21,316 people were killed in road accidents in Bangladesh in 2012, while the figure was 24,954 in 2016, as per WHO data, showing an upward trend in fatalities.
Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) former chairman Habibur Rahman, former general secretary of Dhaka Union of Journalists Quddus Afrad, and BRTA Assistant Director (Road Safety) Niyamat Ullah Lenin were present.