New Delhi: The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways is organizing 28th Road Safety Week from 9th to 15th January 2017 with the objective of spreading awareness about the issue. The week will open with a Road Safety Walk from India Gate in the capital on 9th January. Minister of Road Transport & Highways Shri Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Health & Family Welfare Shri J.P.Nadda, Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Shri Vijay Goel, MoS for Home Affairs Shri Hansraj Ahir and Delhi Transport Minister Shri Satendra Jain will participate in the walk.
On 10th of January, Shri Gadkari will also attend a conclave being organized to involve Indian corporate houses and enlist their support for the cause of promoting road safety. The National Road Safety Council will also hold its 17th meeting on 10th. This will be attended by Transport Ministers, DG Police and Transport Commissioners/ Secretaries of states . This will be followed by a meeting of NGOs on 11th January. NGOs would be called upon to participate in the Ministry’s efforts to create awareness about road safety.
In addition to this, the Ministry will launch two mobile apps – e-Challan and m-Parivahan – during the week. e-Challan is a comprehensive digital solution for transport enforcement and traffic police that is integrated with Vahan and Sarathi applications. It will provide a number of user friendly features covering major functionalities of the traffic enforcement system. It will provide improved transparency by connecting all stakeholders through a common system and ensuring data integrity; it will also provide ease of operations, efficient monitoring through digitization of records that will enhance the visibility of offenders; and overall better traffic management.
The Ministry will also organize country-wide essay competitions for school children on the topic of road safety. The entrees can be in Hindi, English or any language included in the Indian Constitution.
m-Parivahan is a citizen centric app that will facilitate access to various transport related services. The app provides for virtual driving license and registration certificate through back end connection to Transport National Register. If a vehicle number is entered into the app, it will give full details of the car and the owner including his DL and RC. This will provide a way to check genuineness of a vehicle and driver, help in passenger safety when hiring a driver or when buying a second hand vehicle. However, the user has to be registered so that his credentials can be established. One of the ways of doing this would be through an Aadhar based OTP.
The app will also facilitate good Samaritans through technology. They can report accidents by clicking pictures and reporting to traffic authorities in states and to RTOs, with the option of hiding their identity if they so wish. They can also report traffic violations. States will be asked to provide linkages to the 108 service for better response.
The Ministry also plans to extend the Highway Advisory System (HAS) that it had launched last year as a pilot project on Delhi-Jaipur highway for 2400 km on 12 national highways covering 13 states viz. Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal and Odisha. HAS is a free-to-air information distribution system that uses radio to make the travelling experience on National Highways safer, faster and hassle-free. HAS control centre collects data, processes and analyzes it , generates alerts and sends it to be broadcast by All India Radio.
In addition to all this the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways is also organizing workshops in the states with different stakeholders to sensitize about road safety. So far, workshops have been organized in Bihar, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Assam, Rajasthan and Puducherry and the participation has been very encouraging. Action Plan on Road Safety, local road safety issues, State Road Safety Policy, etc are discussed in the meeting. The Ministry will organize the workshop in each state by March 2017. The Ministry will also run road safety campaigns through social media such as twitter, face book, etc.
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