State home department has taken the initiative, implementation in near future.
In a bid to speed up payment of the insurance claims for victims of accidents on the state’s highways, the home department has decided to alter its rules, making it compulsory for the highway police to register highway accident cases and file first information report (FIR) within 48 hours of an accident.
Satej Patil, minister of state for home, told this to DNA on Sunday, while talking over the phone. “The home department has started the ground work for the changes and it would take three months for this initiative to be implemented across the state,” he said.
This move would lead to expediting insurance claims of people involved in accidents on the 37,000 km of state and national highways in Maharashtra.
A state highway police officer told DNA, “According to the rules, anyone meeting with a fatal accident needs to be paid Rs50,000 immediately, while injured people have to be paid Rs25,000, apart from the claim amount.”
However, this claim is only realised once the FIR has been lodged. Right now the process takes months, thereby delaying claims for the victims in need of money. The police officer claimed that the delay is due to the problems in identifying the victim.
The minister would hold a meeting with state transport department and home department soon to discuss the modalities of the subject. Patil said, “We will take consult all the departments concerned.”
According to the highway police, year 2008 recorded 75,527 accidents on state and national highways in the state. Of these 12,397 were fatal accidents.
In 2009, as many as 71,995 accidents took place of which 11,403 were fatal. In 2010, there were 71,289 accidents, 12,340 of which were fatal.
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