In a country where more than 100 pedestrians are killed in road accidents every day, the Supreme Court’s recognition of the right to walk on safe, demarcated footpaths as a fundamental right raises hopes of finally holding public authorities accountable for their chronic failure to protect pedestrians. Today, our road infrastructure has improved exponentially, but in all this, the pedestrian has been forgotten. Many roads do not have pavements at all. Even the existing ones in most cases are unwalkable because of missing slabs, uneven surfaces, power distribution transformers, open pits and trenches, manholes, dumped garbage and construction material, hawkers and parked vehicles. Pedestrians, as a result, are forced to walk on the road, at great risk to their lives. As per the 2024 data of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, pedestrians are the second highest victims of road accidents in the country, constituting 20.6 per cent of the fatalities. Translated into numbers, it is 36,526 deaths in 2024. In 2014, the number of pedestrians killed was 12,330, constituting 8.8 per cent of the total road accident fatalities. The numbers have trebled in the past 10 years. The percentage of pedestrian deaths is even more alarming in the data put out by the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, in 2024 in its ‘India Status Report on Road Safety’. Based on FIRs in six states, it puts the percentage of pedestrian fatalities at 44 per cent in Delhi, 29 per cent in Haryana, 28 per cent in Uttarakhand, 24 per cent in Maharashtra, 23 per cent in Chandigarh and 10 per cent in Chhattisgarh. If we take into consideration the number of people who have suffered debilitating injuries or died while walking on pavements on account of open manholes or ditches or electrocuted by live wires or transformers, the numbers would be even more staggering. We have statistical data on road lengths, but data on pavements is scarce. In 2024, it was estimated that only 56 per cent of Delhi roads have footpaths. In Bengaluru, which is one of the worst cities for pedestrian safety, reports say only 10 per cent of the existing footpath network is walkable. Gurugram is no better. After all the swanky roads were built, it was found (in 2020) that only 28 per cent of the road network had pavements! The urgency for providing safe, walkable pedestrian walkways also comes from the fact that India’s demography is changing — over 15 crore people in the country are above 60 years of age and this number is expected to go up to 23 crore by 2036. This population not only needs to walk for health reasons, but walk on safe surfaces. Similarly, we have a large population of people with disabilities that makes it imperative that pavements and road crossings facilitate and not impede their travel. The ‘IRC-103:2022 Guidelines for Pedestrian Facilities’ is the standard formulated by the Indian Road Congress for planning, designing and maintenance of pedestrian facilities to ensure their universal accessibility. The standard is available on the web and citizens should demand that pavements be built and maintained as per these standards. In the past, several attempts have been made by civil society groups and activists to push for safe pavements. Now the landmark Supreme Court judgment should catalyse all citizens to demand time-bound laying of pavements where none exist, repairing of the existing ones and the removal of encroachments. Citizens must use this opportunity to enforce accountability in urban development and civic authorities. — The writer is a consumer affairs expert
