New Delhi, Oct 23 : In an effort to curb the rising number of road accidents in which India has surpassed all other countries, the central government plans to set up state-of-the-art vehicle fitness centres across the country to ensure proper functioning of their safety components.

Talking about the initiative at a conference on road safety Friday, Secretary of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways Brahm Dutt said: "The idea of testing vehicles for the proper functioning of their critical safety components has been there, but until now it was being done manually. Now state-of-the-art, well-equipped vehicle testing centres will be set up across the country so that the testing is more thorough".

"Car owners will then have to get their cars checked regularly and get it certified. This will help in reducing the high rate of road accidents that India has been witnessing," Dutt added.

According to the ministry, India has surpassed all other countries in the number of road accidents. In 2008, India recorded 130,000 deaths in road accidents. The figure was
10 percent of the world's total fatal accidents.

"Around 40 percent of the road accidents happen on highways. India overtakes all others in road accidents because of improper illumination, absence of railings and markings on roads, missing signs and missing traffic management," Dutt said.

S. K. Das, joint secretary in the ministry, said the governemnt was also working on ammending the Motor Vehicles Act.

"Most provisions in the Motor Vehicles Act are outdated. We had proposed 50 ammedments to the act, and it was to go to parliament in the last budget session. However, it was observed that we had proposed these changes in 2001. Since a lot of time has passed in between, we have now been asked to re-work on some of the proposals," Das said.

"We will submit the updated proposals in the next three months," he added.

Das also said that the ministry is working on increasing the penalties for driving offences like talking on the mobile phone while behind the wheels.

"Talking on the phone while driving is a dangerous trend and we want to increase the penalty for such an offence, maybe to the effect of imprisonment. We have to discourage such habits if we want to avoid innocent lives saved on our roads," Das said. (IANS)