Manipur: High prevalence of drunken driving, Transport Min flags serious concern

The Manipur Transport Minister also informed that the government is taking steps to minimize the occurence of accidents at night.

Pic used for representative purpose

Manipur Transport Minister Khashim Vashum today flagged serious concerns over the prevalence of drunken driving in the state and said that the state of affairs is quite disappointing.

In fact to highlight the gravity of the situation, the minister mentioned about an incident where his own driver was drunk and with him on board the car, was about to collide with an earth moving equipment.

Speaking on the sidelines of the National Road Safety week, the Transport Minister speaking to Northeast Live said, “Nowadays you see alcohol, drinking habit is a major issue especially with our people in Manipur. Beacuse most of the drivers they are drinking while they are driving, so I am really disappointed and not happy at all. Because recently also, I am telling from personal experience even my driver, he drank and he drove, luckily the JCB (with whom Vashum’s car was about to collide) driver could escape (averted the accident), but the JCB went down the road. This happened due to drinking of alcohol.”

While appealing everyone to abide by the traffic rules, Vashum said another cause of concern was that drivers do not follow the prescribed speed limits. To control this and prevent accidents, the Manipur Transport Department is working in close coordination with CSOs and the police department.

Vashum said, “Another important thing is that hardly we obey speed limit, where the speed limit is 40-60 kmph, we will just drive 80 kmph. And in the hill areas especially in Tamenglong, Ukhrul the speed limit should not be more than 40 but most of our drivers because they do not have proper driving licence and they are not aware of the danger of speed limit, in hill areas the corners are very curved, they drive at a speed of 40-50 kmph. The violators have been dealt with as per the law. In the meantime we have also interacted with the CSOs also. Suppose in Ukhrul if anyone is crossing the speed limit, we keep them in our custody, I mean to say in the custody of the CSOs. In such ways also we are taking action. Police are also imposing fines on them (violators).”

The Manipur Transport Minister also informed that occurence of accidents at night is very frequent and that his department is working to minimize such incidents.

He said, “We are trying our best, we are in contact with the police department also. Right now we are short of staff, but we are taking it very seriously. We will try our best. Whatever you said I admit that at night accidents are very frequent, but still then we are trying our best with the help of the police.”

Worth mentioning as per data released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (data released till 2022), Manipur had witnessed 508 road accidents in 2022 alone of which 109 were fatal.

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