According to a report of the World Health Organisation last year, 3 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product is lost in the country due to road accidents.
One-year-old Lakshya lost both his parents last year in a road accident in South Delhi.
On a Saturday evening last June, 34-year-old Deepak and 32-year-old Asha Sharma went out for shopping, but never returned home.
"The police only told us that the bike hit the divider on the BRT outside Lajpat Nagar metro station. But looking at the place there and the impact, we feel something must have hit them, before the divider," said Shyamlal, Deepak's father.
But the family did not have enough time to find out details of the accident. By the time they reached the hospital, Asha was already dead, and Deepak, having suffered serious head injuries, was in a coma. He continued to be in coma for nine months, before breathing his last in March this year.
But this tragedy is not just that of human loss.
Deepak who worked as a BPO executive was the main earning member of his family. The family had to spend more than 40 lakhs for his treatment, mostly by borrowing from banks and family friends.
"One day changed our life" said Abhishek Sharma, Deepak's brother. "The office insurance helped. But I could only go to office for four hours, as I had to stay in hospital for long hours. There was a lot of pressure. Even now financially we are finished."
According to a report of the World Health Organisation last year, 3 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product is lost in the country due to road accidents. That amounts to a whopping Rs 3.5 lakh crores.
Consider this, the defence budget of the country is Rs 2 lakh crores, health and education is Rs 37,000 crores, and rural development is Rs 80,000 crores.
According to experts the government cannot afford to ignore the economic impact of road accidents any longer.
"The perception is an accident only leads to medical expenditure. But what people don't realise is that the entire state machinery is pressed into action. Cops, hospitals even insurance. Lots of skilled manpower is lost to road accidents. The employer will have to incur additional costs to replace it," says Avishek Mazumdar, GM Operations, Hubert Ebner.
After Union minister Gopinath Munde's death in a road accident, the government pledged to re-draft the motor vehicles act and bring about serious changes for better road safety. But they have admitted, it's a tall task.
Union minister for Health Harsh Vardhan, agreeing with the findings of the WHO report, said "We need to start making the simple changes first, by implementing the seat belt rule. Infrastructure needs to improve, more ambulances, trauma centres need to be in place".
The first step lies in building awareness. But for the Sharma family, which has contributed two names to the statistics of road accident victims in the country, change is coming too late.