Mumbai, Feb 5 (PTI) Maharashtra has recorded a rise in the number of road accidents as well as serious injuries in them for the sixth consecutive year, though the silver lining is that fatalities have registered a marginal decline, officials said on Thursday citing figures from the transport department’s provisional accident data of 2025.
The state recorded 36,450 road accidents in 2025, sustaining the upward trend despite intensified enforcement, while the number of seriously injured persons rose by 8 per cent during the year, marking the sixth consecutive annual increase, as per the report.
As per official data, the state recorded 24,971 accidents in 2020, which rose to 29,477 in 2021, to 33,383 in 2022, to 35,243 in 2023, and 36,110 in 2024.
After witnessing a dip in accidents in 2020, when the first wave of the COVID pandemic hit the world, from 32,925 the previous year, numbers have steadily increased every year thereafter, the report stated.
Incidentally, Maharashtra, which has a vehicular population of over 4.5 crore, witnessed one of its worst traffic congestions on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway over the past two days after a tanker carrying flammable gas overturned in the Khandala Ghat section.
However, Maharashtra managed to bring down fatalities slightly for the first time since 2021.
In 2025, Maharashtra recorded 15,549 deaths in 14,440 fatal accidents, compared to 15,715 deaths in 14,565 fatal crashes in 2024.
Road fatalities, however, have shown an overall rising trend since 2020, when 11,569 people lost their lives in accidents, the report showed.
The death toll increased to 13,528 in 2021, 15,224 in 2022, 15,366 in 2023, and 15,715 in 2024, as per provisional data.
In a release issued on January 22, Maharashtra’s Additional Transport Commissioner Bharat Kalaskar claimed a dip of 166 fatalities (1.05 per cent) in road accidents in 2025 was the positive effect of continuous measures being implemented by the transport department.
The release also claimed the state government has set a target of reducing the number of road accidents by 50 per cent by 2030.
Various efforts are being undertaken, including the formation of road safety cells at the state and district levels, among others, to achieve this goal, the release had added.
Maharashtra, however, failed to bring down the number of serious injuries in road accidents in 2025, as per the provisional data.
The state recorded 23,756 serious injuries in 2025, up from 22,051 in 2024.
Data showed Maharashtra reported 13,971 serious injuries in 2020, which rose to 16,073 in 2021, 19,540 in 2022, 21,446 in 2023, and 22,051 in 2024.
Sanjay Sasane, principal of Institute of Driving Training and Research Society (IDTRS), Pune said lack of driver training is one of the reasons for the rising road accidents in the state, besides various other reasons.
“While the motor vehicle rules prescribe a training syllabus for all drivers, it is mandatory only for commercial vehicle drivers,” Sasane, a former RTO officer, said.
Despite two-wheelers and four-wheelers accounting for nearly 70 percent of accidents and vehicular population, the issue has received little attention.
“Some mechanism is required to bring this category under the training regime, to gave them knowledge about the regulations, emergency control of the vehicles and identification of the risk or hazard perception,” Sasane said. PTI KK BNM
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