Andhra Pradesh CM Orders Road Safety Lane Marking Reform

The Government of Andhra Pradesh has launched one of the most comprehensive urban road safety infrastructure programmes in the state's recent history — a statewide initiative to implement standardised road lane markings, kerb painting, and scientific traffic signages across all 123 Urban Local Bodies. Initiated under the direct directions of Chief Minister N Chandra Babu Naidu, the programme represents a decisive shift in how Andhra Pradesh approaches urban road safety — moving from reactive accident response toward proactive infrastructure standardisation that creates the physical conditions for safer, more disciplined urban mobility across every town and city in the state.

Overview of Andhra Pradesh's Urban Road Safety Reform

A Statewide Programme With Immediate Implementation Mandate

The programme was formally set in motion through comprehensive directions issued by Principal Secretary of the Urban Development Department, S Suresh Kumar, to the Commissioner and Director of Municipal Administration and the Engineer-in-Chief of PHMED. The directions carry an explicit mandate for immediate implementation — using available municipal general funds and road maintenance grants to ensure that financial constraints do not delay a programme whose road safety urgency has been clearly established at the highest level of the state's political leadership.

The breadth of the programme's geographic coverage — all 123 Urban Local Bodies across Andhra Pradesh — is itself a significant statement of ambition and commitment. Previous road safety infrastructure initiatives in Indian states have frequently focused on major cities or specific high-accident corridors, leaving smaller ULBs to manage road safety with whatever resources and standards happen to be locally available. Chief Minister Naidu's directive that all ULBs must participate simultaneously sets a universal standard of urban road safety infrastructure that is genuinely statewide in character, not merely in name.

The use of available municipal general funds and road maintenance grants for programme funding reflects a pragmatic approach to implementation — tapping into existing financial channels rather than waiting for dedicated budget allocations or central scheme approvals. This financing strategy accelerates timelines significantly, enabling immediate field-level activity without the delays that new budget allocations typically entail.

Chief Minister Naidu's Vision for Modern Urban Mobility

Roads That Reflect Safety, Discipline and Global Standards

Chief Minister N Chandra Babu Naidu has articulated the philosophical foundation of the programme with characteristic directness: urban infrastructure development must go beyond the construction of roads and focus equally on safety, discipline, aesthetics, and citizen convenience. This framing is significant because it challenges the tendency — prevalent across many Indian states — to measure urban road investment primarily by road surface quality and connectivity, while treating lane markings, signages, and pedestrian infrastructure as secondary concerns to be addressed when time and budget permit.

The Chief Minister's explicit identification of properly marked roads and scientific signages as critical for reducing traffic confusion, improving pedestrian visibility, and ensuring safer urban mobility systems reflects an evidence-based understanding of what actually causes accidents in urban environments. A well-surfaced road without clear lane markings, stop lines, and zebra crossings is not a safe road — it is an undefined space in which traffic behaviour defaults to the least disciplined interpretation of shared space, with predictable and preventable consequences for road safety.

His instruction that officials must ensure visible transformation of major municipal roads, junctions, and public corridors within a time-bound framework — with close field-level monitoring — signals that this programme will be driven with the performance accountability that has characterised his administration's approach to infrastructure delivery.

Standard Lane Markings Across 123 Urban Local Bodies

Creating Uniform Road Safety Standards From Vizag to Kurnool

The decision to implement standardised lane markings across all 123 ULBs simultaneously addresses one of the most persistent and damaging features of India's urban road safety landscape: the radical inconsistency in road marking standards between different cities, towns, and even different roads within the same urban area. A driver who travels between towns frequently encounters roads where the meaning of painted lines — if they exist at all — varies dramatically, creating confusion, unpredictability, and the kind of traffic behaviour that produces accidents.

By establishing uniform standards across all Andhra Pradesh ULBs — drawing on the same IRC specifications and implemented through the same SOP — the programme creates a statewide road language that every driver in the state can be expected to understand and respond to consistently. This standardisation is not merely aesthetic — it is a fundamental road safety intervention that reduces the cognitive uncertainty that contributes to unsafe driving decisions at junctions, crossings, and along urban arterials.

The programme covers both major urban corridors and the smaller roads within ULB jurisdictions — ensuring that road safety infrastructure standards are not confined to showcase main roads but extend to the secondary and tertiary roads where daily commuter and residential traffic actually moves.

Scope of Works — From Zebra Crossings to Traffic Signages

A Comprehensive Infrastructure Package for Every Urban Road

The programme's scope of works has been defined with a level of specificity that reflects serious operational planning rather than aspirational policy announcement. Every ULB participating in the programme will undertake a comprehensive and interconnected package of road safety infrastructure works.

Lane markings form the primary component — covering standardised central lane and side lane markings that define vehicle travel paths clearly and consistently across all road types within the ULB. Edge lines and stop lines at junctions create the physical prompts that govern vehicle positioning at intersections — one of the highest-risk environments in any urban road network. Zebra crossings — whose fading and absence across Indian urban roads is one of the most consistently documented road safety deficiencies — will be properly painted and maintained, restoring the pedestrian safety infrastructure that is legally required and practically essential.

Black-and-yellow kerb painting will improve edge visibility for drivers, particularly during night driving and in poor weather conditions — addressing one of the factors that contributes to vehicles leaving the carriageway in low-visibility scenarios. Mandatory, cautionary, and informatory traffic signages will be installed at appropriate locations — providing drivers with the clear, timely, and consistent information they need to navigate safely through each ULB's road network.

Special safety improvements around schools, hospitals, junctions, and market areas — the locations where pedestrian activity, vehicle volumes, and road safety risk are most concentrated — will be given priority attention within the programme. And critically, the rectification of minor road defects before execution of marking works ensures that the new safety infrastructure is placed on a sound physical surface — preventing the rapid deterioration that occurs when markings are applied to damaged road surfaces.

IRC Standards and the SOP Framework for Implementation

Engineering Standards That Ensure Quality and Consistency

Principal Secretary Suresh Kumar has simultaneously issued a detailed Standard Operating Procedure for programme implementation, specifying that all works must be executed in accordance with IRC:35, IRC:67, and IRC:SP:118-2018 standards. This standards framework is the technical backbone of the programme's quality assurance — ensuring that the lane markings, signages, and kerb paintings delivered across all 123 ULBs meet the same engineering specifications and provide the same level of road safety effectiveness.

IRC:35 governs the code of practice for road markings in India — specifying paint types, application widths, retroreflectivity standards, and maintenance requirements for all categories of road marking. IRC:67 covers the code of practice for road signs — governing sign design, placement heights, retroreflectivity, and visibility standards for traffic signs across Indian roads. IRC:SP:118-2018 provides guidelines for urban road design, including provisions for pedestrian infrastructure and mixed-traffic environments that are directly relevant to the conditions in Andhra Pradesh's ULBs.

By specifying these standards by name in the SOP, the programme creates an unambiguous quality benchmark against which implementation can be assessed and against which substandard work can be objected to and remedied. All Municipal Commissioners and Engineering officials have been directed to personally supervise execution and ensure strict adherence to these standards — creating individual accountability at the field level that complements the programme's statewide policy mandate.

Principal Secretary Suresh Kumar on Road Safety Standardisation

A Uniform Scientific Urban Road Management System for AP

Principal Secretary S Suresh Kumar has articulated the programme's objective with clarity: to create a uniform and scientific urban road management system across Andhra Pradesh, with emphasis on road safety, standardisation, and improved commuter experience. This framing positions the lane marking and signage programme not as a standalone initiative but as a foundational layer of a broader urban road management system — one that creates the standardised physical environment within which traffic enforcement, public awareness, and driver behaviour change can operate most effectively.

His emphasis that potholes, damaged kerbs, drainage defects, and other deficiencies must be rectified before undertaking marking and signage works is both technically and symbolically important. Technically, it ensures the longevity and effectiveness of the new road safety markings. Symbolically, it signals that this programme is about comprehensive road safety improvement rather than cosmetic surface treatment — a distinction that determines whether the initiative delivers genuine road safety benefits or merely visible infrastructure activity.

The programme's launch during a period of heightened national focus on urban road safety — with the Supreme Court's lane driving observations, statewide AI traffic management system deployments, and multiple state government road safety drives all creating a powerful policy context — makes Andhra Pradesh's initiative timely, relevant, and positioned to contribute to a national momentum shift in how Indian states treat urban road safety infrastructure as a governance priority.