Coming soon: Cashless treatment scheme for accident victims on Golden Qualdrilateral

New Delhi, Aug 9: In a welcome move, the NDA government is all set to announce cashless treatment scheme for crash victims soon.

According to TOI report, Golden Quadrilateral, North-South and East-West corridors, covering approximately 13,500 km of national highways, will be covered under the pilot project.

Crash victims will be entitled to get free treatment for upto 48 hours, at the nearest hospitals from the accident sites. Under the scheme, for expenditure upto Rs 30,000, patients would not not be required to pay.

It would be mandatory for ambulances to reach accident victims withinn 15 minutes.

At present, pilot schemes are on for three stretches - Gurgaon-Jaipur and Mumbai-Vadodara stretches of NH-8 and Ranchi-Rargaon-Mahulia of NH 33.

The government is planning to rope in insurance companies, to launch the scheme.

The move is expected to cost government Rs 250 crore annually. The road transport ministry annually receives Rs 17000 crore as road cess.

During his popular radio programme, "Mann Ki baat", PM Narendra Modi on July 26, had announced to implement the National Road Safety Policy and cashless treatment for road accident victims.

"The statistics on road accidents in our country are shocking. There is an accident every minute. And due to road accidents there is a death every four minutes," he had said.

He had also said there would be a nation-wide toll free number 1033 to provide information on accidents across the country.

Official statistics show 15 to 16 people in road accidents in the country every hour or nearly 380 every day.

Cashless treatment for road accident victims started in 2013, but in reality it is not a new initiative.

The pilot project for cashless treatment was first proposed in 2012 and was launched on NH-8 in July 2013.

Two more pilots on NH-8 and NH-33 have been implemented, according to government data submitted to parliament.

OneIndia News