New York: India has called on the international community to provide assistance, including technical help, to the developing nations to improve road safety and aid them in building capacity to make the travel safer.

Mobilisation of financial resources to assist the efforts of developing countries is also crucial, said India's ambassador to United Nations Nirupam Sen while intervening in the General Assembly debate on road safety yesterday.

Welcoming the Russian offer to host and finance a ministerial level meeting on the issue next year, Sen expressed the hope that the meet would provide the necessary impetus towards holding a UN conference on global road safety sometime in future.

However, cautioning that it is not always feasible to universalise standards that might have been developed in one region, Sen said that specific circumstances in various parts of the world must be taken into account.

India, Sen told the 192-member Assembly, attaches great importance to address the problem of road traffic safety as the country has one of the largest road networks in the world, spanning over more than 3.3 million km.

Road traffic has been increasing at more than 10 per cent per annum since the turn of the century and the share of road traffic in total traffic has also been growing steadily, he said, adding currently, 65 per cent of freight and 86 per cent of passenger traffic is carried by the roads.

India, Sen said, has been working actively to enhance road safety and to reduce the adverse consequences of traffic accidents. In this regard, he highlighted three aspects of road safety - Engineering, Enforcement and Education or three Es, and said India is taking action on all three aspects.

Source : PTI