By OUR STAFF REPORTER
DEHRADUN, 11 Feb: Road safety rules can save 1,234 lives and 53 road accidents per day, if followed properly, said Yashpal Arya, Transport and Social Welfare Minister, here, today. Arya was speaking at Graphic Era Hill University on the occasion of the concluding ceremony of the 30th Road Safety Week.
Addressing the students, he said the main objective of the Road Safety Week was to inculcate discipline among the youth and also create awareness about road safety rules. Nearly 1.5 lakh families are affected by road accidents and, if the number of deaths was reduced, it would add to a 3% increase in the GDP of the country. Arya applauded the initiatives taken in this direction by Graphic Era University and congratulated the management for its efforts.
While speaking on the occasion, Sunita Singh, Additional Transport Commissioner, Dehradun, advised the parents to not to give their children vehicles to drive without a valid licence. She focused on the 19 point procedure of issuing driving licences and appealed to the youth that those driving on the road should be well educated and trained to not only drive safely but also avoid any accidents due to others’ faults. She also threw light on the various efforts and initiatives taken by the transport department on road safety.
Arvind Pandey, Assistant Regional Transport Officer, Dehradun, presented alarming facts in his presentation on road safety and shared that the year 2017 had witnessed almost a total of 1,47,913 deaths in India.
Prof Sanjay Jasola, Vice Chancellor, Graphic Era Hill University, said that the University Management was quite pro-active and concerned about the increasing number of road accidents and in this direction the University had added to the number of buses plying to far off locations around the city, for which students were charged less than Rs 1000 per year. This initiative had led to less number of students using personal vehicles to come to University each day.
The programme also saw active participation of the University Theatre Group, AAINA, which presented a play on road safety. The group included Anamika Gaur, Mehul Pandey, Yuyutsa Barthwal, Sarthak Shrivastava, Mansi Verma, Atul Bhatt, Piyush Chand, Ayush Verma, Abhilasha Mer, Tanya Khatti. Not only this, Ubaid and his team captivated the audience with their self composed song on road safety.
H C Semwal, Dr Ajay Kumar, Director, Graphic Era Hill University, Vice Chancellor, Graphic Era University, Rakesh Kumar Sharma, Director, Infrastructure, Dr Subhash Gupta, Dr Lakshmi Chauhan, Dr Vishal Sagar, Transport Officer Dinesh Chandra Patoi and other members of the Transport Department. Dr Yashdeep and SK Singh co-hosted the event. This was followed by flagging off of a two-wheeler road rally by Yashpal Arya.
