Dehradun: Road accidents are taking a heavy toll in Uttarakhand as large number of tourists and pilgrims were killed during the past two years in the state which is known as Devbhumi (abode of God).
At least 543 people, mostly tourists, were killed during 2008 in road mishaps and most of them occurred during the pilgrimage season, according to a latest official data.
Besides this, another 1,164 were injured during the same period, says the data available with the Disaster Management and Mitigation Centre (DMMC), a state government nodal agency set up for dealing with disasters in the state.
In 2007,400 people were killed and 1,143 others injured in various accidents.
In some of these accidents, landslides are stated to be the culprit. But lax driving and poor infrastructure contribute to the fatalities. Tehri district bore the brunt of the accidents where 131 people were killed in different accidents last year.
In a way, these road accidents affect tourism. "When such accidents occur, people are scared of travelling by buses," said Giridhar Sharma, a travel agent.
The state which has four religious shrines -- Badrinath, Kedarnath, Yamunotri and Gangotri -- attracts lakhs of pilgrims every year. They do come, but there is no surety that they will return safe.
Take the case of Lambagar, a total of 50 road accidents occurred in this obscure place in Chamoli district leading to Badrinath shrine in the past three years.
"The government should improve the connectivity to these shrines and try to minimise the risk in travelling," said an official of the Tourism Department.
