NAGPUR: The police department, with the help of the other stakeholders like health, transport, highways and 108 ambulance, is now set to fill in the accident data in the iRAD (Integrated road accident database) app from February 15 onwards. The exercise, started in six states on pilot basis, has been initiated by the ministry of road transport and highways to collect, collate and analyse accident information after preparing a comprehensive pan-India database for policy-making.
Developed with the help and expertise of IIT-Chennai, the national informatics centre (NIC) has embarked upon imparting training to the police department and other stakeholders regarding various aspects of the app and modalities of filing the accidental details on a war-footing.
Information collected would be used for formulating road-safety policies, rules, regulations and other plans or projects to make roads safer.
Additional DG, state traffic, BK Upadhyay, who is supervising the functioning of the state nodal officer for the implementation of the iRAD app SP highway patrol Sunita Salunkhe – Thakre, said 10 districts of Maharashtra have been identified in the initial phase which would be later extended to the rest of the state. “Police would collect information of accidents from other stakeholders and fill in the App. It would have various details like the location of the accident, timing, vehicles involved, victims, injuries, use of protective gear and so on.This information would later help to study the pattern, timing and other factors leading to the accident and develop policies based on them,” he said.
“We have already taken an online meeting of SPs and issued the necessary instructions,” said the top cop. Upadhyay also said the dry run of the app was also successfully conducted in the state.
It’s learnt that staffers from five police stations in each earmarked districts, including Aurangabad, Beed, Pune, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Solapur, Jalgaon, Palghar and Yavatmal apart from Nagpur, would be groomed to make entries in the app.
According to a senior officer, the app would have accuracy up to the exact latitude and longitude of the location of the accident.