New Delhi: While the Union ministry of road transport and highways provided data to show that Tamil Nadu leads in the country in terms of road accidents caused by minors, state government data has shown otherwise, according to a report in The Hindu.In a written response in the Rajya Sabha on March 19, Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari shared data from the Integrated Road Accident Database (iRAD) system that showed that from 2023 to 2024, Tamil Nadu recorded the highest number of road accidents caused by minors with 2,063 cases. This was followed by Madhya Pradesh (1,138) and Maharashtra (1,067).However, according to the report in The Hindu, the Tamil Nadu police while verifying the figures provided in the Rajya Sabha report found that within the same iRAD system, total accidents registered by minors in Tamil Nadu was 473 for 2023 and 2024.The state recorded a total of 204 accidents in 2023 and 269 in 2024, totaling 473 accidents caused by minors (juveniles) over these two years.“Where is 200 and where is 2,000? Clearly there is an error here,” a senior official of the Traffic and Road Safety wing of the State Director General of Police was quoted as saying.State data showed that the total number of challans issued to guardians and parents of juveniles stood at 41 in 2023 and 80 in 2024. As per that data, it was Bihar that stood first in the number of challans issued to minors, at 1,316, by collecting a revenue of Rs 44.27 lakh.The police official also said that accident and crime cases are fed into the iRAD system through the State Crime Record Bureau (SCRB), which is in turn part of the Tamil Nadu Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS).According to the official, Tamil Nadu recorded a 17% decrease in fatal road accidents in January and February. The numbers dropped to 2,576 fatal accidents, resulting in 2,678 deaths, compared to 3,110 fatal accidents and 3,253 deaths in the same period in 2024, the report said.
