Bengaluru: To make the roads more safe for commuters and reduce accidents and deaths by half before 2025, the Indian government is undertaking massive efforts in this direction.  

The first-ever National Road Safety Month was inaugurated to build awareness about road safety and reduce road accidents in India. Earlier a road safety week was being organized, but considering the importance of the issue, a month-long program has been made this year, reports add. 

Speaking on the occasion, Minister Gadkari informed that in India, a total of 1.5 lakh people died, while more than 4.5 lakh people got injured in road accidents every year, resulting in social-economic losses from accident deaths equivalent to a shocking 3.14 per cent of GDP every year.

He said, 70 per cent deaths are in the age group of 18 to 45-year-old people, which is nearly 415 people dying per day in India.

"If we wait till 2030, six to seven lakh more people will die. So, we have made a commitment that before 2025, road accidents and deaths due to it will be brought down by 50 per cent with help of people's participation," Nitin Gadkari said while inaugurating the event at Vigyan Bhawan.

According to the United Nations’ Brasilia Declaration with the target of reducing road fatalities by 50 per cent by 2020. India became a signatory of it in November 2015.