Nearly 27,000 people died in national highway road accidents during Jan-June 2025, says Gadkari

As many as 26,770 people died in road accidents on the national highways across India in the first six months (January-June) of 2025. Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, on Wednesday has informed the Rajya Sabha that as many as 52,609 fatal accidents took place in 2024 on the national highways across the country.

The union minister informed the Parliament that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has installed the Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) on high traffic density national highways and national expressways such as Delhi-Meerut Expressway, Trans-Haryana, Eastern Peripheral Expressway, Delhi Mumbai Expressway, etc. "ATMS has provisions for various electronic enforcement devices which help in speedy identification of incidents on highway stretches and effectively monitor highways, thereby improving the response time of the on-site assistance," he said.

Gadkari also said that in new projects on the high-density and high-speed corridors of NHAI, installation of ATMS is generally a part of the project. Further, ATMS is also implemented as a standalone project in already constructed important corridors, he said. Responding to a separate question, the union minister said that road safety audit has been conducted for 112,561 km of national highways during the last three years.

Road accidents are a major public health concern in India, with more than 450,000 reported accidents responsible for over 150,000 deaths in 2022. Every year, the country witnesses lakhs of road accidents, which result in the deaths of many people, while leaving a larger number of people wounded and often critically handicapped as well. Two-wheelers are often the most involved vehicles in fatal road accidents. Some of the key reasons behind the road accidents on national highways and national expressways include overspeeding, riding two-wheelers without helmets, etc. Pedestrians not using the proper underpasses or designated places for crossing the roads is also a major reason behind many road accidents.

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