Safe road rules in place but enforcement, funds missing

PEdestrian deaths in republic of india ar alarming. Functionary statistics reveal that the yearly list of such fatalities have increased from 25,858 in 2019 to 35,221 in 2023. This means 96 pedestrians die every day on Indian roads due to these accidents.Taking note of this high fatality rate of pedestrians in road crashes –– with one out of five accident victims being pedestrians, the Supreme Court on October 7 issued a 35-point order in a 2012 public interest litigation (PIL) seeking safer road design and enforcement.The top court emphasised that compliance with Indian Road Congress (IRC) standards is already mandated under Section 138(1)(c) of the Motor Vehicles Act, and cautioned all agencies that failure to comply could attract fines of up to ₹1 lakh under Section 198A. It also established clear deadlines, directing all states and union territories to frame and notify rules under sections 138(1A) and 210D of the Act for regulating pedestrian access and design standards of non-highway roads.Established in 1934, the IRC functions as the country’s apex technical forum for highway engineers. The IRC has published over 150 codes and manuals, which together form the basis for road planning, design, and maintenance across the country. Key among these are IRC:73 for geometric design of rural roads, IRC:86 for highway drainage, IRC:103 for pedestrian facilities, and IRC:11 for cycle tracks.Yet, until amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act in 2022 made compliance mandatory, only national highways had to follow these norms. In theory, all new or upgraded roads should now adhere to IRC codes; in practice, implementation remains patchy.Currently, only Odisha and Maharashtra have framed draft rules that are aligned with the law. Audits by the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre, IIT Delhi, found alarming statistics on the availability of footpaths in four cities in each state. Maharashtra among the best performing states had an availability of 56% while Jammu & Kashmir had a footpath availability of less than 5%.“If followed in letter and spirit, roads designed using standardised parameters — such as maintaining a consistent carriageway width, well-planned gradients and drainage, and minimum width of footpaths will make them safer and more durable,” a practitioner on tactical design fixes with multiple city governments said on anonymity.The Supreme Court also ruled that within a year, 50 cities must retrofit pedestrian crossings on at least 20% of their road networks, prioritising high-footfall areas such as schools, hospitals and transport hubs. The court also instructed states to conduct joint safety audits of transport nodes, create grievance redressal platforms for footpath maintenance, and use road safety funds specifically for pedestrian infrastructure.Many policy advocates have lauded these time-bound directives of the top court. “As states move to draft these rules, it is crucial that they are informed by data, harmonised with national standards, and supported by robust inter-agency collaboration — ensuring that India’s roads become safe by design, not by chance,” said Piyush Tewari, founder and CEO, SaveLIFE Foundation, an organisation working on road safety.Road design standards are the technical backbone of safe and efficient transport networks. They define every element that determines how a road functions — from its width and curvature to how pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles interact. These standards specify geometric design (lane width, shoulder type, sight distance, gradient), pavement structure and materials, drainage systems, road signage, lighting, and intersection layouts. They also set norms for safety features such as guardrails, crash barriers, medians, and delineators. In urban areas, they extend to footpaths, cycle tracks, tactile paving for the visually impaired, and traffic-calming elements like raised crossings and curb extensions.Implementation hurdlesFragmented responsibilities make public accountability more difficult. A single arterial road may fall under multiple agencies — the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), state public works department (PWDs), and municipal bodies, each with differing supervision quality, standards depending on the political will, finances and technical wherewithal of the agency. The outcome is uneven safety and design quality across adjoining stretches.“The issue is not lack of standards, but lack of accountability. Officials must be held accountable and not only at the lowest level but all the way up. That can only change it,” said S Velmurugan, chief scientist and head, Traffic Engineering and Safety Division of Central Road Research Institute. Each state’s performance in reducing road fatalities and serious injuries is monitored by the Supreme Court-appointed committee (part of a different case on road safety), he added.More recently, there have been multiple announcements made by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) on action against private contractors for faulty construction, but action against its own officials are rare.Institutional and skill gapsDespite legal backing, implementation capacity remains thin. Rohit Baluja, president of the Institute of Road Traffic Education, noted, “We have the law and the technical codes, but we don’t have the people trained to implement them. Highway engineers know construction, not traffic engineering. Police are trained for regulation, not for enforcement based on engineering principles.”Engineering colleges focus on structural design rather than human-centric street planning. In cities, traffic police operate signals without being trained engineers, while PWDs execute civil works but lack enforcement authority. “It’s like asking every heart patient to undergo angioplasty when there aren’t enough cardiologists. Orders can be issued, but capability cannot be built overnight,” he said.Procurement and practical bottlenecksEven where know-how exists, procedures are outdated. Traditional road contracts were designed for widening or resurfacing, not for integrating pedestrian or cycling infrastructure. Tender evaluation committees seldom include urban designers or landscape specialists, so features such as raised crossings or tactile paving are often treated as cosmetic extras. Further, the bureaucrats are to blame,Velmurugan said.“What we have failed to achieve is inclusion — ensuring that pedestrians, cyclists, and vulnerable road users are part of the road design framework. Often, there is a knack of building signal-free corridors without giving an accessible pedestrian interchange,” he added.Municipal finances add another hurdle. While MoRTH and NHAI have access to large budgets, cities struggle to fund comprehensive retrofitting. “Low-cost fixes such as raised crossings or lane separators are feasible, but complete-street redesigns need dedicated funding,” said the practitioner quoted above.In a decade, he said India has moved from having no pedestrian-design standard to having one of the most detailed standards in the developing world. But, translating these into city-wide phenomena is impossible with the state and Centre consistently concentrated on vehicular infrastructure.The TenderSURE model in Bengaluru — which coordinates surface design with underground utilities — is a rare exception. Its success depended on rewriting tender documents, involving multiple departments, and securing funds for complete-street construction. Similar efforts in Pune, Chennai, and Indore show promise but remain limited because complete-street projects can cost up to 20 times more per kilometre than conventional road contracts. But, in most large cities with the exception of Pune, only the tony localities of the city have these wide footpaths and have remained as lighthouse projects for decades.