Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday instructed officials to implement an action plan with inter-departmental coordination for road safety to prevent accidents. He also appealed to the people to follow traffic rules and stressed that it was essential to check accidents, especially due to the winter fog.
Adityanath's directive comes after five people were killed and 33 others injured in separate accidents due to dense fog on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway in Auraiya district and the national highway in Aligarh. In Auraiya, three people were killed and nine others injured when a Lucknow-bound bus rammed into a truck on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway, police said.
In Aligarh, two people were killed and 24 others injured in accidents on National Highway 91 due to heavy fog, they said. More than a dozen vehicles, including a police patrol car, were damaged in the subsequent pile-up. According to a state government statement released in Lucknow, Adityanath said the possibility of road accidents increased due to the outbreak of fog in winter. Therefore, everyone should follow traffic rules for safe travel.
The Chief Minister also instructed the officials to conduct extensive public awareness programmes regarding road safety. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, on the other hand, accused the state's BJP government of neglecting "the best expressway"
"Country's best Agra-Lucknow Expressway victim of neglect of BJP government, danger of accidents in dense fog. The government should make proper arrangements for security on the expressway...," Yadav said in a tweet in Hindi. He also appealed to the people to provide all possible help to accident victims in their regions.
