Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari revealed in Parliament that approximately 27,000 people lost their lives in road accidents on India’s National Highways during the first six months of 2025. This staggering figure accounts for nearly 36% of the country’s total road fatalities, despite national highways constituting only 2% of the road length but handling a disproportionate volume of traffic - 40% of freight movement and more than 30% of accidents nationwide .

Gadkari emphasized that India records around 480,000 annual road accidents, resulting in about 180,000 deaths, mostly among young adults aged 18–45 - costing India over 3% of its GDP .

In response, the government has launched accelerated audits of 13,795 accident-prone black spots, with a goal to permanently rectify all by 2029. Innovative models like the Zero Fatality Corridor (ZFC) on NH‑48 between Mumbai and Pune have already led to a 67% drop in fatalities at priority sites .

However, persistent criticism centers on slow implementation: although short-term fixes have been applied to over 11,500 black spots, only about 5,000 have received long-term engineering upgrades so far . Gadkari urged urgent infrastructure reform, improved civil engineering practices, stronger enforcement, and better emergency response systems to achieve the target of halving accident rates by 2030 .