Addressing road accidents is a joint responsibility of both State & Central Govts: Transport Director
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, August 24 2018: Conveying that around 139 people were killed while 1117 others were injured in about 605 road accidents occurred in the State, during 2013 to 2017, State's Directorate of Transport Director, C Arthur W claimed that the Department has drafted Manipur Road Safety Fun Scheme in compliance to the Supreme Court's directive/ guidelines to tackle the rising number of accidents in the country.

He also said that a Senior DSP from Manipur Police has been posted for establishment of a Lead Agency, body headed by Transport Director to act as the secretariat of the road safety council and coordinate all activities such as licensing issues, acquisition of road safety equipment such as cameras and speed governors.

He was speaking as the chief guest at the inaugural function of the one day National Workshop on Road Safety for safe drive and save life which was jointly organized by Department of Transport, GoM and Institute of Drivers Training & Research Centre (IDTRC), Manipur at Manipur State Film Development Society (MSFDS), Palace Compound, Imphal today.

It was also sponsored by Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and Association of State Road Transport Undertaking (ASRTU).

Informing that China and India contribute the highest number of death by accident in the world data, the Transport Director maintained that around 1.5 lakh lives are lost annually while more than five lakh of people have suffered grievous injuries and permanent disabilities due to road accident in India.

He also pointed out that road accident also leads to economic lost in a country and cited Rs 55,000 crores as the roundabout figure of economic lost in the case of India every year.

Noting that road accident is a multisectoral and multidimensional issue, Arthur opined that addressing the issue needs a joint responsibility of departments and Governments of both the State and Centre as all have their respective roles to play in this regard.

ASRTU Consultant Tamali Ganguli who attended the workshop as guest of honour underscored the importance of sensitizing the masses, making collective effort and implementing stricter and stern measures towards the efforts to minimize road accidents.

She went on to assert that the purpose of the workshop is to create a forum where all departments and citizens come together and formulate an action plan for road safety.

Saying that people generally fail to recognize the rippling effect of road accident and take it lightly as death by road accident does not occur commonly in mass scale, she said that one will uphold the impact of road accident if he/ she realizes the collateral damage to the society, such as the death of a bread earner may affect a whole family.

Even though road safety lessons have been included in the school curriculum to groom children with the right disciplines of road safety while introduction of scientific methods and equipments in traffic management have been an enormous help towards the efforts, to control road accident, no amount of Government bodies, regulatory bodies and law makers will not make the road safe unless the citizens choose to make the road safe.

Hence, it is high time that all sections of the society.

Government and citizens make a collective effort to curb the menace of rising road accidents, she added.

IDTRC, Manipur Member Secretary Shantikumar Naorem presided the inaugural function.

Technical and interaction sessions were also held during the workshop and many experts have spoken on various topics related to road safety.

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