Such ghastly statistics about road accidents in Nepal should have made the authorities sit up a long time ago
Any accident involving a death or injury is tragic, but one taking place during festival time is particularly sorrowful. The death of at least a dozen persons in a bus accident in Salyan on Sunday should raise concern among the concerned authorities as this is not the first time a vehicle has skidded off a mountain highway to claim so many lives. According to the police, the bus with 40 passengers was on its way to Tulsipur, Dang from Khalanga, Salyan, when it fell 200 metres from the Rapti Highway, killing six on the spot and seriously injuring dozens more, some of whom succumbed to their injuries. Most of the passengers had been to Salyan to celebrate the Tihar festival with family members. Given the poor condition of Nepal's roads, the tens of thousands of people who are returning to work in the cities must be travelling with a prayer on their lips that they reach their destination safely.
Another big highway accident in nearby Karnali Province just last month was just as tragic, leading to a huge loss of lives. On October 12, thirty-three people were killed when a bus heading towards Mugu from Nepalgunj plunged hundreds of metres below the Karnali Highway. Most of them were students and migrant workers who were returning home to celebrate the Dashain festival. Barring the expensive air travel, roads are the only means of reaching one's destination in the mountains (and elsewhere), but the frequency with which accidents take place on them makes travel nerve-wracking instead of fun. In the last five years, the country has recorded more than 46,700 road mishaps, in which almost 12,000 people have been killed. With some 2,500 people killed in vehicular mishaps in Nepal annually, most of them on the highways, it has one of the highest road accident-induced death rates in the world. Such ghastly statistics should have made the authorities sit up a long time ago.
If the government were to be serious, the number of deaths triggered by vehicular accidents could be greatly curtailed. For instance, 50 people on average are said to lose their lives annually in road accidents on the Karnali Highway alone, which is one of the most dangerous roads in Nepal. If only the 232-km road could be widened and upgraded, the number of accidents would climb down drastically. However, the government is focused primarily on preventing road accidents in the urban centres while paying only lip service to the plight of the people in the rural, remote areas. Apart from improving the condition of Nepal's roads, the licensing of bus drivers, especially those who drive on mountain roads, should be strictly monitored. Only those drivers who have had 10 years of experience driving buses on the Tarai roads should be allowed to drive on mountain roads. And then, the Traffic Police and the local authorities have the responsibility to see to it that only new buses that are well maintained are allowed to ply on the highways.
Overloading of passengers is another problem seen with public vehicles, both in the cities and elsewhere.
A death or injury of a passenger cannot be consigned to mere statistics – it could mean the loss of a family's breadwinner or the ordeal of having to look after a disabled person for life.
Poor health service
It was expected that the primary health posts would provide better health services to the local people after they came under the direct supervision and management of the elected local levels. But most of the hospitals in the rural parts of the country face the same problems that they used to grapple with before their handover to the local levels: shortage of qualified human resources and medical equipment.
A report from Myagdi states that the 50-bed Beni Hospital has not been able to cater its services to the people due to a shortage of human resources and infrastructure.
The hospital, which was upgraded from 15 to 50 beds five years ago, has a total 123 allotted posts for doctors and other medical staff. But it is currently operating with only 15 of them. How can we expect quality health services to be delivered to the people when the hospital does not have the required number of doctors and medical staff, especially when it is overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients? The hospital management has said they need an additional six doctors and 12 nurses to smoothly run the hospital visited by hundreds of people every day.
The concerned local level must mount pressure on the central government to fill this yawning gap.
A version of this article appears in the print on November 09, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
