Road safety in India has reached a scale that warrants a sustained, coordinated, and mission-mode response. Recently published data from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) for 2024 records 4,87,707 road crashes and 1,77,175 fatalities across the country. Tamil Nadu, as per this data, reported 67,526 crashes and 18,449 fatalities. Among all the States, Tamil Nadu recorded the highest number of road crashes, underlining the magnitude and urgency of the challenge. Road safety initiatives require multiple stakeholders to work together across multiple time frames.
The Citizen consumer and civic Action Group (CAG), as a member of the Road Safety Network, had earlier engaged with Tiruchi Siva, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, on the need for a National Road Safety Mission to address the road safety crisis in a coordinated and sustained manner. This proposal was subsequently raised in Parliament by Mr. Siva, earlier this year. The rationale for such a Mission is similar to the broader mission-mode approach adopted for complex public health challenges: the problem requires sustained attention, coordination across multiple agencies, dedicated resources, measurable targets, and continuous monitoring, rather than a series of isolated interventions.
Recently, the Tamil Nadu government announced in the Assembly, the Chief Minister’s Road Safety Mission, with a reported annual allocation of about ₹500 crore. This is an important opportunity to strengthen and bring together road safety efforts in Tamil Nadu. The announced measures include technology-enabled enforcement through ANPR cameras, strengthening emergency response through the upgrading of government health facilities and linking them with accident-prone locations, and other initiatives.
Tamil Nadu already has multiple institutions, committees, and initiatives working on different aspects of road safety. Implementation remains spread across Transport, Police, Highways/PWD, Health, Urban Development, and other departments. The value of this Mission should be in bringing these existing efforts together under a common framework, with political ownership, shared targets, clear departmental accountability, sustained funding, and regular review. The Mission can provide the platform to drive a Safe System approach across the State — bringing together policy and action on speed management, safer road infrastructure and vehicles, protection of vulnerable road users and children, effective enforcement, and post-crash and trauma care. Crucially, departments should be reviewed not only on activities undertaken, but on measurable outcomes in reducing fatalities and serious injuries.
Comprehensive action plan
A logical and important instrument of this Mission would be a comprehensive State Road Safety Action Plan (RSAP) that provides a clear roadmap for implementation. The Plan should recognise that road deaths and serious injuries are preventable and that responsibility for safety must be shared across the transport system, in alignment with the internationally accepted Safe System approach. It should establish clear, measurable targets for reducing fatalities and translate the safe systems approach into specific interventions covering road infrastructure, appropriate speed management, safer vehicles, effective and risk-based enforcement, protection of pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable road users, safer school travel, driver and fleet safety, emergency and trauma care, and post-crash response. It should clearly define the responsibilities of the concerned departments and agencies, identify the resources required, ensure sustainable funding, establish timelines, and provide for regular monitoring and independent evaluation.
Importantly, the State Action Plan should not remain a broad statement of intent. It should translate State-level priorities into district-level Road Safety Action Plans, based on the specific risks and needs of each district. Each identified problem should lead to a defined intervention, with a designated agency responsible for implementation, a budget, a time frame and measurable indicators of progress. This would also help address one of the persistent weaknesses in road safety — the gap between policy and implementation.
Data-driven approach
The Centre of Excellence for Road Safety (CoERS) at IIT Madras, a think tank on road safety under MoRTH, has developed a comprehensive implementation framework, Data Driven Hyperlocal Intervention (DDHI). To facilitate the implementation of this programme, Sanjaya, an Integrated Road Safety portal, has been deployed by CoERS. This helps key stakeholders analyse data to support decision-making and monitor implementation, providing an accountability platform with the ability to create data-driven action plans and track implementation.
This approach brings together relevant data from police, transport, highways, health, and other agencies to identify and prioritise risks, support evidence-based interventions and enable the government to track implementation across districts. Most importantly, it could connect each identified risk with the proposed intervention, responsible agency, funding, timeline, and outcome. Periodic reviews could then assess not merely whether an intervention has been completed, but whether it has actually reduced risk, crashes, and serious injuries.Together, these can turn the Mission from a policy commitment into coordinated, evidence-based action, with clear responsibilities and measurable outcomes.
Tamil Nadu has an opportunity to demonstrate how existing road safety initiatives can be brought together under a coordinated, measurable, and outcome-oriented Safe System Mission. The immediate priority should be to give the Mission a clear framework, including a comprehensive State Road Safety Action Plan integrated with the Sanjaya platform. The experience could also provide a model for a similar Mission approach at the national level and in other States. The larger challenge is not necessarily the absence of road safety initiatives, but bringing policy, institutions, funding, implementation, and accountability together under one sustained Mission framework to achieve the ultimate goal of reducing deaths and serious injuries on our roads.
(Dr. Venkatesh Balasubramanian is Professor, Department of Engineering Design, and Head – RBG Labs & Centre of Excellence for Road Safety, Indian Institute of Technology Madras; S. Saroja is Executive Director, Citizen consumer and civic Action Group, Chennai.)
Published – October 09, 2026 12:29 pm IST
