30-06-22 Daily-Odisha-OPSC Current Affairs

A committee led by finance minister Niranjan Pujari has given its nod to establish 34 new courts16 civil, 10 commercial and eight sessions courtsin the state, law minister Pratap Jena said here on Monday. Jena said the new courts will help reduce pendency and take the delivery system closer to people.

Odisha currently has more than 700 Subordinate Courts. According to a reply given by Union law ministerKiren RijijuinLok Sabhaon March 25, total 15.45 lakh cases are pending cases in lower courts in Odisha. They include 12.38 lakh criminal cases and 3.07 lakh civil cases. Similarly, 1.89 lakh cases are pending in theOrissaHigh Court, the HCs pendency report as on April 29 on its website shows.

Two commercial courts will come up in Puri besides one each in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Rourkela, Balasore, Balangir, Kendrapada, Jeypore and Rourkela. One commercial court will be a Leave Reserve court to hear cases in case of any commercial court judge on leave.
The law department has asked the registrar of the Orissa high court for staff pattern and revised cost estimates for establishment of the different courts. As per the current estimate, the government would spend Rs 21.26 crore on Infrastructure.

approves $250 mn loan for road safety

The World Bank has approved a $250 million loan to support the Government of India’s road safety programme for seven States under which a single accident reporting number will be set up to better manage post-crash events.

The India State Support Program for Road Safety, financed by the World Bank, will be implemented in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The $250 million variable spread loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) has a maturity of 18 years including a grace period of 5.5 years.

The project will also establish a national harmonised crash Database system in order to analyse accidents and use that to construct better and safer roads.

It will also fund Network expansion of basic and advanced life support ambulances and training of first responder caregivers to road crash victims on the spot.

The project will also provide incentives to the States to leverage private funding through Public Private PARTNERSHIP (PPP) concessions and pilot initiatives.

According to a World Bank study, road crashes are estimated to cost the Indian economy between 5% to 7% of GDP a year. Official government data show that each year road accidents in India kill about 1,50,000 people and injure another 4,50,000. More than half of the victims are pedestrians, cyclists, or motorcyclists and almost 84% of all fatalities are among road users between the working ages of 18-60 years.

India successfully conducts VL-SRSAM missile test off the coast of Odisha