Mains – 9th Nov 23

Status of Road Accidents in India – 2022

Why in News?

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has released a report called “Road Accidents in India-2022,” which highlights worrying patterns in road accidents and fatalities.

Background:

• The report relies on data and information collected from the police departments of various states and union territories on a calendar year basis. This data is collected in standardized formats as specified by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) through the Asia Pacific Road Accident Data (APRAD) base project.
• APRAD is a specialized software tool created to assist the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and its member countries within the Asia-Pacific region in establishing, revising, overseeing, and organizing road accident databases.

Key Highlights of the Report:

• Demographic Impact:

1. Young adults in the age group of 18 – 45 years accounted for 66.5% of the victims in 2022.
2. Additionally, people in the working age group of 18 – 60 years constituted 83.4% of the total road accident fatalities.

 

• Number of road Accidents:

During 2022, India witnessed a total of 461,312 road accidents, resulting in 168,491 fatalities and causing injuries to 443,366 individuals.

 

• Road Accident Distribution:

• 1. Accidents on National Highways and Expressways accounted for 32.9% of the total, while State Highways saw 23.1%, and the remaining 43.9% occurred on different categories of roads.
  2. Of the total fatalities, 36.2% took place on National Highways, 24.3% on State Highways, and the remaining 39.4% transpired on other types of roads.

• Rural vs Urban Accidents:

Approximately 68% of road accident fatalities were recorded in rural areas, while urban areas accounted for 32% of the total accident-related deaths in the country.

 

• Demographic Impact:
  1. Young adults in the age group of 18 – 45 years accounted for 66.5% of the victims in 2022.
  2. Additionally, people in the working age group of 18 – 60 years constituted 83.4% of the total road accident fatalities.

• Vehicle Categories:
  1. Two-wheelers, for the second consecutive year, accounted for the highest share in both total accidents and fatalities in 2022.
  2. Light vehicles, including cars, jeeps, and taxis, ranked a distant second.

• Road user Categories:
  1. Among road-user categories, two-wheeler riders had the highest share in total fatalities, representing 44.5% of persons killed in road accidents in 2022.
  2. Pedestrian road-users were the second-largest group, with 19.5% of fatalities

 

International Comparison:

India has the highest number of total persons killed due to road accidents, followed by China and the United States.

What are the Road Accident Mitigation Measures Taken by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways?

• Education Measures:

1. To create effective public awareness about road safety, the Ministry undertakes various publicity measures and awareness campaigns through social media, electronic media and print media.

• 1. Further, Ministry implements a scheme to provide financial assistance to various agencies for administering Road Safety Advocacy.
• Engineering Measures:
  1. Road safety has been made an integral part of road design at planning stage. Road Safety Audit (RSA) of all highway projects has been made mandatory at all stages.
  2. The Ministry has notified the mandatory provision of an airbag for the passenger seated on the front seat of a vehicle, next to the driver.
• Enforcement Measures:
  1. The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019.
  2. Electronic Monitoring and Enforcement of Road Safety rules (specify the detailed provisions for placement of electronic enforcement devices (speed camera, body wearable camera, dashboard camera, etc)).

 

PM Pranam Scheme

PM Programme for Restoration, Awareness, Nourishment and Amelioration of Mother Earth

Why in News?

It was announced in 2023-24 Budget and was recently approved by Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs. The scheme aims to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers by incentivizing states to adopt alternative fertilizers.

 

Objective of the Scheme

• Encourage the balanced use of fertilizers in conjunction with biofertilizers and organic fertilizers.
• It also intends to reduce the subsidy burden on chemical fertilisers, which is expected to increase to Rs 2.25 lakh crore in 2022-2023, which is 39% higher than the previous year’s figure of Rs 1.62 lakh crore.
• To generate awareness of regenerative agriculture.

 

Regenerative Agriculture is an outcome-based food production system that nurtures and restores soil health, protects the climate and water resources and biodiversity, and enhances farms’ productivity and profitability.

 

Financing

• The scheme will not have a separate budget and will be financed by the savings of existing fertiliser subsidy under schemes run by the Department of fertilisers.
• 50% subsidy savings will be passed on as a grant to the state that saves the money.
• 70% of the grant provided under the scheme can be used for asset creation related to technological adoption of alternate fertilisers and alternate fertiliser production units at village, block and district levels.
• The remaining 30% grant money can be used for incentivising farmers, panchayats, farmer producer organisations and self-help groups that are involved in the reduction of fertiliser use and awareness generation.

 

Fertiliser usage in India

• The Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare assesses the requirement of fertilisers each year before the start of the cropping season, and informs the Ministry of Chemical and fertilisers to ensure the supply.
• Most of the fertiliser is required in Kharif season due to the fact that kharif season (June-October) is critical for India’s food security, accounting for nearly half the year’s production of foodgrains, one-third of pulses and approximately two-thirds of oilseeds.
• The total requirement of four fertilisers — Urea, DAP (Di-ammonium Phosphate), MOP (Muriate of potash), NPKS (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium) — increased by 21% between 2017-2018 and 2021-2022, from 528.86 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) to 640.27 LMT.
• Due to increased demand for fertiliser in the country over the past 5 years, the overall expenditure by the government on subsidy has also increased.

Fertiliser Subsidy in India

• In light of the increased demand, the government has also been increasing the subsidies it provides for chemical fertilisers. In the Union Budget 2021-22, the government had budgeted an amount of Rs 79,530 crore, which increased to Rs 1.40 lakh crore in the revised estimates (RE). However, the final figure of fertiliser subsidy touched Rs 1.62 lakh crore in 2021-22.
• In the current financial year (2022-23), the government has allocated Rs 1.05 lakh crore, but the fertiliser Minister has stated that the fertiliser subsidy figure could cross Rs 2.25 lakh crore during this year.
• PM PRANAM, which seeks to reduce the use of chemical fertiliser, will likely reduce the burden on the exchequer.

 

Associated Development CACP has recommended that Urea should be brought under the Nutrient-Based Subsidy (NBS) regime to address the problem of imbalanced nutrient usage in agriculture. Under the NBS regime – fertilizers are provided to the farmers at the subsidized rates based on the nutrients (N, P, K & S) contained in these fertilizers. Also, the fertilizers which are fortified with secondary and micronutrients such as molybdenum (Mo) and zinc are given additional subsidy. NBS policy intends to increase the consumption of P&K fertilizers so that optimum balance (N:P: K= 4:2:1) of NPK fertilization is achieved. It is being implemented from April 2010 by the Department of Fertilizers, Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers.   Urea is out of NBS Currently, urea is excluded from the NBS scheme, which has led to disproportionate use and deteriorating soil health. Keeping urea out of NBS essentially means that the government has retained direct control over MRP of urea and its subsidy. The MRPs of other fertilisers have been under indirect control by virtue of NBS policy. Manufacturers of these fertilisers have the freedom to fix MRP within “reasonable limits”, and a fixed per-tonne subsidy linked to their nutrient content is given. This has caused their MRPs to increase over the years, whereas urea’s price has remained unchanged. While the price of urea was fixed at Rs 5,360 per metric tonne (MT), the price of DAP (Di-ammonium phosphate) was at Rs 27,000 per MT in April.

 

The three Fs – Food, Fertiliser and Fuel Subsidy constitute 95% of the total subsidy in India.

In case of urea, the price of fertilisers for agricultural and industrial use differs. Such price differential paves the way for leakages to even industries of neighbouring countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh.

Government developed 100% neem coating of urea to overcome the diversion to industries in 2015.

Reckless use of urea and underconsumption of some micronutrients led to the deterioration in soil quality leading to a declining crop response ratio in India.

One of the repercussions of having huge subsidy expenditure is that there exists a trade-off between subsidies and investment. It means more subsidies signify less investment.

Ironically, public investment growth has followed a linear pattern, while growth in input subsidies has been exponential during the last three decades