The Odisha government has directed district collectors to establish dedicated highway safety task forces across the state, following a Supreme Court directive issued on April 13. A senior transport department official stated that these task forces will address safety concerns on national highways through coordinated actions, including removal of encroachments and prevention of illegal parking.
Rising Accident Numbers Prompt Action
Accidents on national highways in Odisha have been increasing steadily. Transport department data reveals 4,317 accidents in 2022 and 4,587 in 2023, resulting in 2,043 and 2,180 deaths respectively. The task forces aim to curb this trend through systematic interventions.
Composition of Task Forces
Each task force will comprise eight members. The district collector will serve as chairperson, the superintendent of police (SP) or deputy commissioner of police (DCP) as co-chairperson, the additional district magistrate or sub-collector as nodal officer, and the regional transport officer as member convener. Other members include officials from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the Public Works Department (PWD), municipal administration, and the tehsildar.
According to an order issued by Transport Secretary N B S Rajpur on Wednesday, the collector will oversee coordination, issue directions, review compliance, and resolve inter-departmental bottlenecks. The co-chairperson will focus on police enforcement, highway surveillance, patrolling, and support during anti-encroachment drives. The NHAI official will be responsible for highway stretch inventory, encroachment identification, right-of-way demarcation, black spot rectification, and engineering safety works.
Permanent Coordination Mechanism
The task forces are expected to ensure time-bound compliance with Supreme Court directions on highway safety, encroachment removal, illegal parking control, surveillance, and enforcement. They will serve as a permanent inter-departmental coordination mechanism to prevent avoidable accidents caused by encroachments, unsafe roadside activities, illegal parking, and infrastructure gaps.
Fortnightly review meetings will be held, with minutes maintained and monthly action-taken reports submitted to the transport commissioner. The task forces will also identify unauthorised eateries, garages, shops, parking clusters, vending units, and other roadside encroachments. They will serve notices and carry out removal actions. Existing licences, no-objection certificates (NOCs), and trade approvals within highway safety zones will be reviewed, and no new approvals will be granted without clearance from NHAI, PWD, and the concerned road agency.
Additionally, the task forces will assess the need for truck lay-bys, wayside amenities, bus bays, and pedestrian safety measures to make national highways safer for all users.
