In order to ensure the timely treatment of victims of road accidents, the Union Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) is planning to introduce the ‘golden hour’.
MoRTH’s “Golden Hour”
Under this initiative, free cashless treatment shall be provided to the victim for up to Rs 1.5 lakh or 7 days of hospitalization, whichever is less, within the first 60 minutes of the accident.
This scheme, which shall be applicable nationwide, shall be a part of the amended Motor Vehicle Act 2019 (MAV2019).
The first 60 minutes from the injury are referred to as the golden hour. As per the sources, the general insurance companies would establish a corpus of around Rs 100 crores for this project by contributing 0.5 per cent of third-party premiums.
Government Pilot Scheme in Haryana and Chandigarh Aims to Reduce Road Fatalities
The central government is planning to start a pilot scheme in Haryana and Union Territory of Chandigarh for testing the effectiveness of the scheme.
In order to reduce the road fatalities by 50% through this ‘golden hour’ scheme, the government wants to ramp up its efforts to prevent the road fatalities, which were recorded 1.68 lakh in 2022.
Significant steps have been taken by the government to promote vehicle safety through engineering. The implementations to promote the same include mandates for ABS and over-speeding alert systems, as well as seat belt reminders and the new Bharat NCAP crash safety rating test.
