Road Safety Month will be observed across State from January 15 to February 15. Various events will be organised during the month in the state in order to make people aware about road safety. Chief Secretary Amitabh Jain chaired a meeting with officials at Mantralaya, Nava Raipur in Atal Nagar recently to review the State Road Safety Scenario. In the meeting, the Chief Secretary discussed measures to control road accidents including accident-prone road sections, engineering improvements, arrangements for quick treatment of injured in road accidents and immediate assistance, traffic education, road safety awareness, enforcement action, road safety audit etc. Gave necessary directions to the officers. In the meeting, Secretary of Transport S Prakash threw light on the road safety scenario of the state. It was informed in the meeting that Road Safety Month will be celebrated in the state from 15 January to 15 February. During this period, various programmes will be organized in schools and other institutions to create public awareness regarding road safety. Chairman of Inter-departmental Lead Agency on Road Safety and Joint Commissioner (Road Safety) Sanjay Sharma informed that in the year 2023, there has been an increase of 1.33 percent in road accidents as compared to the previous year.

 

About 49 percent of the road accidents in the state have occurred in districtsRaipur, Bilaspur, Raigarh, Korba, Durg, Mahasamund and Balodabazar. Road safety measures have been discussed in 66 meetings of District Road Safety Committees. A total of 11,895 public awareness programmes were held in the state. The police department conducted challan proceedings in a total of 5,41,407 cases and collected summon fees worth Rs 22,64,48,000. 57 black spots and 2,117 junctions were rectified. Information was given about the signs installed at major places including 31 truck lay-bys, 341 bus lay-bys and 7 driver rest areas. Joint Secretary of the Health Department said that in addition to the earlier 7 Trauma Centres, 2 Trauma Stabilization Centres of Raipur and Simga have been started. The remaining 6 are nearing completion. Secretary of the Education Department informed that the work of revising the course materials of road safety and traffic education in the curriculum prepared from class 1st to 10th has been done by the State Educational and Research Council.

 

Secretary of the Transport Department informed that a total of 17,282 drivers and more than 700 enforcement officers and more than 200 school bus drivers have been trained at the Institute of Driving and Traffic Research in the month of December. Apart from driving, it will be mandatory for violators of traffic rules to undergo training. Chhattisgarh’s first automated driving testing track has been prepared, in which the driver will have to take a test using camera and sensor system and the license will be issued only after measuring the efficiency of driving and following the prescribed parameters and time period. Last year, the Transport Department collected Rs 161,28,93,906 as mitigation fee in 8,47,006 cases. 21,886 sign boards and 3810 encroachments were removed by the Urban Administration and Development Department.