Even as home minister R.R. Patil denied that road accidents in the Maharashtra have been on rise, he agreed that around 61,248 road accident deaths were reported in the state in the last five years.
Mr Patil was replying to a star question in the legislative council. Rash driving, road cutting, drunk driving, overloading of vehicles are major factors that lead to mishaps. Natural factors such as incessant rains, fog, landslides and bad roads also cause accidents.
In August 2009, the highway safety police was given the authority to take action against vehicles that failed to abide by the traffic rules. Since then, more than 11 lakh cases have been recorded and fine more than `13 crore has been recovered.
MLCs Dr Deepak Sawant, Parshuram Upparkar and others raised the issue saying that said that as many as 7,104 accidents in the last three years were caused by drivers under the influence of alcohol.
Although Mr Patil refuted the claim, he confirmed that since 2008 till February 2012, there were 1,540 accidents caused while under the influence of alcohol. He further stated that police has been provided with breath analysers, which help in identifying drunk drivers.
Since 2008, the police has charged around 1,69,983 people for driving while under the influence of alcohol. A fine amount of `28 crore has been recovered from them. Around 8,700 cases of drunken driving are pending before various courts in the state, Mr Patil said. A committee — Accident Removal Comm-ittee — has also been formed to find the cause of accident at all the accident prone places, he said.