Kerala: Road accident death rate reduced after AI cameras became operational, claims Transport Minister

AI cameras installation in Kerala has reduced the accident death rate to a certain extent said Transport Minister Antony Raju. At the same time, seat belts will be made mandatory from September 1 for heavy vehicles.

Thiruvananthapuram: According to Kerala's Transport Minister Antony Raju, since the Artificial Intelligence (AI) cameras went into service, the state's fatal accident rate has decreased.

After a meeting to evaluate the AI cameras used to monitor traffic in the state as part of the "Safe Kerala" project, Raju spoke to the media on Friday. He said that over the period of June 5 to June 8, 3,52,730 violations were detected by the cameras.

According to him, Keltron, which validates the detections, uploaded 19,790 cases to the integrated transport monitoring system, and the Motor Vehicles Department has issued challans in connection with 10,457 violations.

Additionally, he mentioned that starting on September 1st, seat belts will be mandatory for drivers and front-seat passengers in heavy vehicles.

"Among the violations, 7,896 were by passengers in cars by not wearing seat belts. 6,153 were riding without helmets and 715 were cases of pillion riders without helmets," he added.

The Congress has been raising corruption charges against the "Safe Kerala" project, which included the installation of AI cameras, envisaged to reduce road accidents and traffic violations in the State since its inauguration in April. 

Earlier, Opposition leader V D Satheesan had revealed evidence showing that the AI camera sale contained corruption worth Rs 100 crore. He alleged that a company called Trois provided a cost estimate for setting up all the systems, including the camera, control room, and annual maintenance. It was suggested to other companies to only purchase equipment from Trois. Trois gave money to other companies totaling 33.59 crores inclusive of taxes for electronic equipment, Rs. 10.27 crores for the control room, software, and software licenses, Rs. 4.93 crores for field installation, and Rs. 8.2 crores for annual maintenance.