NEW DELHI: Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari on Sunday urged the government agencies not to treat road safety campaigns as an “event” to complete “formalities”. He also said everyone should always remember that someone is waiting for him or her at home, which will help bring behavioural change for making the roads safe as he urged government officials to take it up as a mission.
Addressing students, NGOs, and government officials at an event organised by Indian Road Safety Campaign (IRSC) Gadkari said, “For government departments, they simply want to complete the formality to organise a campaign…we need to work positively and involve people from all sections of the society.
It’s a big task considering that we are losing more lives in road accidents every year than the number of people killed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
We should always remember that someone is waiting for us. This is not the end of the road safety campaign. We need to continue this throughout the year.”
This is for the first time, the government started a month-long intense campaign for road safety compared to the earlier practice of observing a “National Road Safety Week.”
Gadkari said his ministry will soon set up the Road Safety Board, which will have domain experts to deal with all aspects of road safety.
He said a meeting is scheduled this week with the finance ministry to make financial provision for the functioning of the board. The board will be the lead central agency for road safety-related matters.
IRSC said a series of creative competitions were carried out during the month-long campaign, which saw the participation of around two lakh people.
“More than 69,000 individuals pledged to make the Indian roads safer for everyone…Nearly 96,000 participants participated in the road safety quiz,” the youth-led organization said in a statement.