617 Die in ASR Road Mishaps in 3 Years
Night driving banned on ghat roads
Visakhapatnam: The picturesque hills of ASR district have so far claimed 617 lives during the last three years, including the nine killed last Friday.
Police sources said 990 accidents took place during the last three years. Of these, 619 persons died and 415 were injured.
Most of these accidents were attributed to low visibility due to foggy conditions in winter, as also to bad roads and inexperienced driving on ghat roads. ASR district SP Amit Bardar, soon after the Friday incident, banned movement of commercial heavy vehicles on the Chintoor and Maredumilli ghat road. Later, the state government banned all the vehicles from 10pm to 5pm.
“We may ban vehicles on all the ghat roads in the district till January end, when the foggy conditions generally subside, and would take up immediate repairs. We would announce the ban after completion of a process that’s currently on, possibly during the road safety meeting in a day or two,’’ ASR collector Dinesh Kumar said.
He told Deccan Chronicle on Sunday that he had sent proposals to the state government with estimates of road repairs and construction of a Gabion structure to strengthen the retaining walls on the ghat roads.
Road-users are criticising the state government for not taking up urgent repairs and maintenance work of the roads tnat were laid 70 years ago.
Prof Mukund of a private university, who specialized in traffic management, said focus was not given to the Chintoor-Bhadrachalam road as it was not popular like Araku Valley and the Ananthagiri Borra caves.
After Maredumilli became very popular nation-wide, the vehicular movement increased, but no maintenance work was taken up. The ghat road has nine hairpin bends and curves that do not suit the heavy vehicles.
“Every year, tree branches are cut after the monsoons for free movement of vehicles. But this was not being done this time,’’ said a motorist, who regularly visits the agency to sell cosmetics. During peak tourist season, 10,000 people visit ASR district a day from October to January end.
