NEW DELHI: Around 75% of eligible hit-and-run victims and their families miss out on compensation provided in the Motor Vehicles Act, according to a new report based on govt data on hit-and-run cases and compensations disbursed.The report by Primus Partners, a management consultancy firm, revealed that close to 70,000 hit-and-run cases are reported annually on average, claiming over 30,000 lives and leaving another 16,000 people seriously injured. Going by the compensation norm in the MV Act, the total annual compensation, taking into account all cases, should be around Rs 600 crore. However, less than Rs 300 crore has been disbursed in four years, highlighting a stark delivery gap.The updated Compensation to Victims of Hit and Run Motor Accidents Scheme rolled out in Feb 2022 provides Rs 2 lakh for death and Rs 50,000 for grievous injury.The report said, “As against an annual average 30,000 deaths and 16,000 grievous hurt victims due to hit-and-run accidents, number of claims registered have been less than 10,000 annually. Further, even after registering claims, less than 8,000 claimants have received compensation annually. As a result, less than 25% of Centre’s yearly obligation of more than Rs 600 cr was disbursed, even four years after scheme’s implementation.“The report listed the hurdles, including low awareness and information asymmetry, complex and lengthy process, administrative bottlenecks, redundant disbursal layers and deterrent undertakings. It found that more than 80% of the respondents were completely unaware of the scheme, and 84% of those who knew about it did not know where to find forms or guidelines.It recommended the scheme’s implementation through the district police department so that the compensation procedure is initiated suo motu immediately after a road crash is classified as hit and run. To transition to a digital, system-initiated process, it recommended migrating the scheme’s implementation to the eDAR platform.“Integrating the network of Common Service Centres into the scheme framework could help victims in submitting basic details on eDAR… Apart from transforming the scheme implementation framework, it is also critical to ensure a formula-based annual revision of compensation amount, for which budgetary support or other sources of funds may need to be tapped by the Union govt of India,” the report said.
