Visakhapatnam: A total compensation of Rs 63.05 lakh has been provided to the affected families of road accident victims, informed Visakhapatnam City Police Commissioner Shankhabrata Bagchi.

Holding an interaction meeting with road accident victims at the city police conference hall here on Thursday, the Commissioner of Police mentioned that the first-ever Road Traffic Accident Victim Assistance Centre in India was inaugurated last December at the police Commissionerate.

The main objective of this assistance centre is to provide necessary assistance to the victims of road accidents (hit and run cases) until the financial compensation provided by the government gets deposited in the accounts of the victims’ family members. He informed that Rs 2 lakh will be granted to the families of the deceased and Rs 50,000 to those who have sustained serious injuries.

The Police Commissioner mentioned that documents like injury certificate, postmortem certificate, postmortem report, etc., will be provided to the victims through the assistance centre.

Similarly, application forms required by the victims to get compensation will be provided free of cost and necessary assistance will be provided to fill in details as well, said the CP.

Through the assistance centre, Shankhabrata Bagchi stressed that a police constable will be assigned to each victim and they would be monitored from the time the victims submit their applications to the revenue officials till the District Collector sanctions the compensation, said Shankhabrata Bagchi.

Till now, 79 members of the victim families have received compensation through this assistance centre. Of them,16 were deceased and 68 were injured, the Commissioner said.