Aim to reduce road accidents, resultant deaths by at least 50% before 2025, says Nitin Gadkari

Pune: His ministry has pledged to reduce road accidents and resultant deaths in the country by at least half before 2025, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Wednesday, and also praised Tamil Nadu for already achieving this goal."The target is to reduce road accidents by 50 percent before 2025 and we can achieve zero deaths due to road accidents by 2030," the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways was quoted as saying in a press release.Gadkari was speaking after inaugurating a webinar series at an International Virtual Symposium on Vehicle Crash Safety, organized by MIT Art, Design and Technology University here.Last year, his ministry participated in a conference in Sweden where a vision to ensure zero road fatalities in India by 2030 was conceived, the minister said. "We had promised that we will reduce deaths and accidents by 50 percent. Today, we saw the success story of Tamil Nadu. It (Tamil Nadu) has reduced the accidents and deaths by 53 percent," he said.The ministry is aiming to provide safer roads by constructing highways with 4 to 16 lanes and prodding vehicle manufacturer to implement newer technologies for safety, he said.