RAWALPINDI, Sept 23: The future of country’s first national road safety plan (NRSP) hangs in the balance, as the first meeting of the national road safety council scheduled to be held on September 11 was deferred for an indefinite period owing to the ongoing political situation in the country, sources told Dawn.

The five-year plan was supposed to be adopted and implemented during the current year. However, the federal minister for communications, Mohammad Shamim Siddiqui, who is chairman of the council, postponed the meeting at the eleventh hour when all arrangements had been made.

On the top of the agenda was the approval of the national road safety plan following which the PC-I would be made and submitted to the Planning Commission for final approval and allocation of funds.

The members of the council included ministers for health and education and provincial ministers for transport.

The council is mandated to set the vision and goals for road safety improvement, fix road safety targets, formulate a comprehensive road safety policy and improvement strategy, recommend safety funding levels, coordinate inter-provincial road safety issues, monitor overall road safety performance, and report progress to the cabinet and task direction and advice from it.

The federal government in cooperation with the World Bank had established the national road safety secretariat in September last year with the main objectives to perform multi-disciplinary tasks across a broad spectrum of road, vehicle and road-user issues including the preventive and curative measures for reduction in the absolute number of accidents.— A Reporter