GDP loses its limb every time a road accident occurs
Bad roads, bad driving and bad policing make Indian roads a virtual death trap. More than 100,000 people die every year in road accidents, and four times that many get injured. Families and friends bear the brunt. But, policy makers should be worried too, for these deaths cost the country at least 2.7 percent of its GDP.
In 2007, for which the latest data is available, India lost at least Rs 1.02 lakh crore on road accidents. Here’s the math. In 2000, the cost of road accidents was Rs. 55,000 crore, or 3 percent of GDP. This often quoted number comes from Dinesh Mohan, a professor at IIT-Delhi, who improved on a study by TCS that had found that India lost Rs 32,000 crore in 1995. He extrapolated this number to 2000 by taking into account higher fatalities (the number then had grown to 85,000) and increased cost of living.(This story appears in the 31 July, 2009 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)