Ranchi: The district legal services authorities Ranchi organised a meeting of judicial officers, doctors, transport officers and the police to thrash out ways for providing timely compensation to the kin of people who sustain injuries and die in road accidents across the district.Officials said 795 road accidents were reported across the district, of which 568 led to fatalities. As many as 175 road accidents were reported between January and March this year, of which 118 were fatal.Ranchi’s judicial commissioner Anil Kumar Mishra, SP (rural) Praveen Pushkar, motor accident claims tribunal (MACT) president officer Nishant Kumar, and head of department, Rajendra Institute for Medical Sciences, Dr Pradeep Bhattacharya, were among the participants.The speakers expressed concern over the long delays in ensuring compensation to the victims and their dependents in accident cases, many of them leading to permanent disability or loss of breadwinners of families.Kumar stated that according to the MACT Act, if all the stakeholders perform their responsibility on time, the affected persons would get the compensation within a year, but in practice the matters are being delayed. He stated that according to the MACT Act, the first accident report should be filed within 48 hours and detailed accident report within three months.He pointed out that presently the information related to accidents is given to the insurance companies at the end. “If provided early, the companies can start their parallel investigation, which is needed for making payment,” he said.While mentioning the importance of speedy compensation, Pushkar said that out of the total registered cases in the district, 5% to 10% are related to accidents in urban areas and 15% to 20% in the rural areas.Mishra said due to lack of resource person with the victims, payment of compensation to them is delayed. Bhattacharya said that messages related to preventing accidents should be displayed at crossings on the roads.MACT advocate Arvind Lal, when contacted, informed that presently payment of compensation to victims is delayed by several years in numbers of cases.
