Transport Minister Chandreshwar Prasad Singh said on Saturday that traffic rules implementers, mainly traffic police and police administration as a whole, needed to follow traffic rules first if they wanted happy ending of drives against traffic rule violation by civilians.
Announcing a campaign against those police and traffic personnel found violating traffic rules anywhere in the State in near future, Singh said that drives against traffic rules violations were fruitful only when those on top came forward to set standards first and made others follow it.
“Despite the fact that the Union government, the State Government and the Supreme Court are altogether concerned about road safety, number of casualties last year only increased in comparison to 2015. This forces us to think that there is grave need of change in mentality of not only those who have to take it seriously, but also those who have been assigned to implement road safety and traffic laws,” said Singh on the occasion of one day workshop on Road Safety ‘Time for Action’ organised by the State’s Ministry of Road Transport.
The Minister, who also holds Urban Development and Housing portfolios, poured his heart out speaking about road safety during inaugural session, as Jharkhand has witnessed number of deaths in road accidents arising to 3,027 in 2016 in comparison to 2,893 in 2015 despite all road safety measures and rules being implemented and enforced during period under consideration.
“When you want common men to follow traffic rules, you will have to become role models. Unfortunately, I see police personnel violating traffic rules more frequently than common men. Vehicle of a common man parked in no-parking area is towed away, while a car belonging to any ministry or a so-called influential person remains parked exactly on same spot for hours and there is no action against its owner. This partiality will have to go. At the same time, I would also urge all present here to abide by traffic rules. I will also request parents and teachers to make sure that their under-aged wards and students don’t take bikes out on roads,” said Singh.
Road Transport Department Principal Secretary KK Khandelwal focused on possible reasons of road accidents and said that avoiding traffic related rules was one of the key reasons of accidents and deaths across the country with Jharkhand not being exception. He said that 40 Advance life Support (AlS) and 289 Basic life Support (BlS) ambulances had been purchased by government to take care of road accidents.
Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (GoI) representative Tamali Ganguly, Special Secretary (Home) Tadasha Mishra, Institute of Public Health Director Suman Mishra, PWD Chief Engineer Vinay lal, Primary Education Joint Secretary Suchitra Sinha, SP (Operations) Sanjeev Kumar, Traffic SP (Ranchi) Sanjay Ranjan Singh, police and traffic personnel, college and school students and other stakeholders were present in the workshop to share their experiences and suggestions on the matter.
“Government has taken a number of steps to eliminate accidents on roads. A provision of Rs 15 crores has been made in Road Safety Fund for current financial year. We have come across 155 black spots of 500-meter stretches where number of deaths has remained more than 10 in a year and have asked officials to get them rectified. We are also providing traffic personnel with necessary equipments like breath analysers and interceptors to bring number of accidents down,” said Khandelwal.
