Union Road and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on January 7 announced a new scheme to provide cashless treatment to road accident victims. Once the police is informed within 24 hours of the accident, the scheme will immediately provide for the victim’s cost of treatment for 7 days, or a maximum of Rs 1.5 lakh.
In case of death in a hit-and-run case, the immediate family of the deceased person will receive Rs 2 lakh.
“We piloted this cashless project in some states. We noticed some weaknesses in the scheme. We are improving them and this will definitely be beneficial,” he said while addressing a press conference at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.
Gadkari was speaking after meeting with the transport ministers of several states. “Our top priority was road safety. 1.8 lakh people died in road accidents in 2024. Among these, 30,000 people died due to not wearing helmets. Another grave matter is that 66% of the victims of fatal accidents belonged to the age group of 18-34 years. 10,000 kids have died due to faulty entry and exits points in our schools and colleges,” Gadkari said.
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“Accidents caused by people without driving license have caused around 3,000 deaths. One of the important agendas of our meeting was driving training centres. There is a lack of 22 lakh drivers in our country. We have also made a new policy on that,” he added.
