West Bengal government notifies new speed limits for vehicles for school, market areas

The West Bengal government has notified new speed limits for vehicles, ranging from 10 km to 50 km per hour depending on school and market areas, across the state to reduce road accidents, officials said on Sunday.

The speed limit on all urban and non-urban roads passing through market and residential areas with significant interactions between motor vehicles and people has been restricted to 30 km/hour to keep the risk of fatality within 10 per cent only, they said.

In school zones, the same has been restricted to 25 km/hour.

The maximum speed limit in urban areas has been capped at 50 km/hour, following the "global best practices factoring the situation in the country and the state", an official said.

The speed limit for buses has been confined to 20 km/hour, which can be reduced to 10 km/hour in certain pockets of the city.

"If road mishaps keep happening in accident-prone pockets, the transport department and the police will examine and take a call on speed limits of buses," another official said.

The state adopted a scientific speed management policy, which was prepared after getting the technical guidance of IIT Kharagpur, he said.

The policy focused on defining safe speed limits under different scenarios and taking all necessary measures for effective implementation and enforcement of speed limits, the transport department official said.

"In the new year, the state moved forward by notifying the safe speed limits which will be implemented and enforced across the state uniformly to reduce road accidents and fatalities," he said.

IIT Kharagpur senior faculty member and traffic and road safety expert Prof. Bhargab Maitra told PTI, "Notified safe speed limits are highly scientific and the notification will be instrumental in reducing road fatalities in the state."

IIT Kharagpur has been working closely with the West Bengal government and will continue to provide all necessary technical support to the state for effective implementation and enforcement of the Speed Management Policy and Notified Speed Limits for the benefit of the people, he said.

"IIT Kharagpur will also provide necessary support to other states for enhancing road safety and benefiting people. Fatalities due to road accidents are unacceptable and we shall do everything possible to improve the road safety scenario," he said.

The state transport official said West Bengal scientifically analysed the year-long data of past road mishaps with the help of IIT Kharagpur and as per its recommendations, the administration initiated several steps and necessary interventions in various domains.

"West Bengal recognised the need for an added emphasis on scientific speed management to reduce the road fatalities in the process of further upgrading its road infrastructure and improving in all other domains," Maitra said.

Transport Minister Snehasis Chakraborty said road safety is a priority area for the state government.

"The state is committed to effective and efficient implementation of the adopted speed management policy and notified safe speed limits," he added.

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