The district administration will assess afresh mishap-prone spots in the steel city and its nearby areas.

East Singhbhum deputy commissioner (DC) Ravi Shankar Shukla told The Telegraph on Saturday that the district transport officer has been directed to collect data from various mishap-prone zones.

“Directive has been issued to the district transport officer to compile accident data at the mishap-prone zones and analyse it so that corrective measures can be undertaken to curb accidents in such locations at the earliest,” DC Shukla said.

Mishap-prone zones are called black spots in road-safety parlance.

So far, the black spots identified in and around Jamshedpur were RD Tata roundabout (Golmuri), NML roundabout (Agrico), Nildih road (Telco), Marine Drive (near Sonari), Kadma-Sonari Link Road, St Mary's English School (Kharkai Link Road, Bistupur), New Baridih Road, Tubes Division roundabout (Burmamines) and Jugsalai, Dimna Road in Mango, and Bhuiyandih Road.

East Singhbhum district transport officer Dinesh Ranjan said the fresh assessment was necessary.

“We have seen several corrective measures being undertaken at the mishap-prone spots and we need to reassess if there had been new mishap-prone spots or mishaps still take place at the earlier locations based on the accident figures for the last two years,” Ranjan said.

We will be completing the analysis as soon as possible,” he added.

The need for this reassessment has arisen after accident figures increase in 2019 as compared to 2018.

As per data of the district transport department, in the year 2019 there had been 349 mishaps out of which 221 had been fatal.

A year ago, there had been 311 mishaps with 157 of them being fatal.

And the increase came despite several road safety exercises undertaken by district administration jointly with Tata Steel Utilities and Infrastructure Services Limited (formerly Jusco).

“We have seen installation of traffic signals, provision of channelling traffic islands, making of speed-breakers, intersection of minor roads and putting up of road signage and road marking at the earlier mishap prone spots. We need to understand what more can be done,” said an official in the district transport office.

The district transport office also plans to launch a drive against overloaded heavy vehicles and heavy vehicles parked illegally along and on roads.

“We will be increasing our frequency of checking against overloaded heavy vehicles in inter-district and inter-state checking points,” said DTO Dinesh Ranjan.

He said the district administration would “also take action against heavy vehicles parked illegally alongside roads near the NH-33 and even in city areas which lead to traffic snarls and accidents”.