Cashless Treatment for Road Accident Victims

PIB: The Union Ministry of Road Transport & Highways has signed Memorandum of Understanding for two more pilot projects for Cashless Treatment Road Accident Victims – one on Vadodara-Mumbai stretch of NH-8 and the other on Ranchi-Rargaon-Mahulia (Jamshedpur) stretch of NH-33. These were signed in the presence of the Minister of Road Transport & Highways Shri Nitin Gadkari this morning. The projects envisage a toll free number 1033 and a 24x7 call centre to receive accident reports on these identified stretches. There will be a provision for deploying GPS-fitted ambulances at every 25 kms to shift the accident victims to the nearest hospital in the shortest possible time. In case of admission to a private empanelled hospital, cashless treatment for the first 48 hours within a limit of Rs.30,000/- will be provided. One of the MoUs was with IFFCO Tokyo General Insurance Company Ltd. for the Vadodara-Mumbai stretch of NH-8 and with ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Ltd for the Ranchi-Rargaon-Mahulia (Jamshedpur) stretch of NH-33. 

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways has also requested the Department of Heavy Industry (DHI) to fund scientific investigation of vehicle or accident/crashes on these two stretches of highways also to be funded from road cess. DHI is already conducting such investigations on the Gurgaon-Jaipur stretch. Results from these investigations are to provide inputs for improvements in vehicle design and regulations, road geometry etc., to minimize damages in such accidents in future. 

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways is already implementing a similar pilot project on Gugaon-Jaipur stretch of NH-8 through ICICI Lombard since July last year. Under that project, a total number of 3011 accident victims have been attended till 31st July, 2014. In the Gurgaon-Jaipur project, average response time of 20 minutes was targeted for the ambulance to reach the accident site, and 20 minutes for the accident victim to be shifted from accident scene to the nearest hospital. After necessary fine tuning, it has been possible to achieve an average response of 8 minutes for ambulance to reach the accident scene and average 15 minutes for shifting of the accident victim to the hospital. Encouraged by the success of this ongoing project, and average response time of 15 minutes each for the ambulance to reach the accident site as well as for shifting of accident victims to the hospital is prescribed for the projects launched today. 

These three pilot projects have been launched for collection of data for rolling out a PAN-India plan for cashless treatment of road accident victims with the objective of reducing fatalities in road accidents by providing appropriate medical care to the accident victims during the “Golden Hour”.

The two pilot projects launched today will be dedicated to the Nation by the Minister of Road Transport & Highways after successful completion of their trial run.