NEW DELHI: Ambulances with state-of-the-art equipment would be deployed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for every 50 km on completed stretches of highways entrusted to them.

A national toll-free telephone number, 108, will be earmarked to which information on accidents can be passed on immediately by passengers or passers-by. This was decided at a meeting here on Monday to draw a road map to develop an integrated and comprehensive system of trauma care by the Ministries of Road Transport and Highways and Union Health and Family Welfare.

The meeting was chaired by Shipping, Road Transport and Highways Minister T.R. Baalu.

The Department of Economic Affairs of the Union Finance Ministry and the Department of Road Transport and Highways will jointly devise an insurance-funded system of payment for the treatment of victims of hit-and-run accidents.

Identifying hospitals

Under the scheme, the Health and Family Welfare Ministry will identify district and Government hospitals near the National Highways for a time-bound upgradation of trauma care facilities. They would also standardise the configuration of ambulances with the latest equipment and draw up qualification for the staff to be deployed on them. This is to ensure that staff would be able to stabilise the condition of victims prior to hospitalisation.

The meeting was attended by senior officers of the Department of Road Transport and Highways, National Highways Authority of India, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Department of Economic Affairs (Insurance Division) and Ministry of Telecommunication.

The other decisions include gradual extension of deployment of ambulances to national highways under construction, provision of ambulances to States, NGOs and hospitals by the Department of Road Transport and to non-NHAI national highways. Follow-up action by all the concerned Ministries to implement the plan during the Eleventh Five Year Plan was also stressed.

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