Maharashtra plans to launch an air ambulance service on three major highways at the beginning of next year, with the state government seeking to reduce delays in transporting road accident victims to trauma care during the critical first hour after a crash.
Transport Minister Pratap Sarnaik said the proposed service will cover the Nagpur-Mumbai Samruddhi Highway, the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and the Mumbai-Goa Highway. The announcement was made after a meeting attended by officials from the transport, health and police departments.
Sarnaik said Maharashtra records nearly 15,000 road accidents every year and that timely treatment remains a major challenge in many cases. He said rapid transport to a trauma care centre during the “golden hour” can determine whether seriously injured victims survive.
“While preventing accidents remains the primary responsibility, it is equally important to establish an effective emergency response system so that accident victims get treatment in time and no one’s life is lost merely due to delays in the arrival of help,” Sarnaik said.
The proposed system will involve more than aircraft deployment. The government plans to establish a network of trauma centres, empanel service providers and standardise response protocols across the agencies involved in accident response. Standard operating procedures will be jointly developed by the transport, health and police departments.
The three highways identified for the service carry significant long-distance and inter-city traffic. The Nagpur-Mumbai Samruddhi Highway links eastern and western Maharashtra, while the Mumbai-Pune Expressway is one of the state’s busiest high-speed road corridors. The Mumbai-Goa Highway serves traffic moving along the Konkan route. The government did not provide details on the number of aircraft, their operating locations, estimated cost or the specific trauma centres that will be included.
Sarnaik outlined a schedule for moving the project towards implementation. Certified procedures for the service are expected to be prepared and approved by November 15. Approval from the high-powered committee is to be obtained by the end of November, after which the tender process will begin.
The service is scheduled to commence at the beginning of the new year. The departments will also have to coordinate how accident alerts are received, how aircraft are dispatched, which hospitals accept patients and how responsibility is transferred between highway responders, medical teams and trauma centres.
