The five days Training Program on Road Safety (11th-15th June) organized by the Punjab Engineering college, Chandigarh in collaboration with Asian Institute of Transport Development, New Delhi under the aegis of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Govt. of Indiawas successfullyconcluded. The training programme aimed at building capacity in the area of road safety for the field engineers.
Smt. Keshni Anand Arora, Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Haryana was the Chief Guest for the inaugural day and Mr. B.N. Puri, formerly Principal Advisor (Transport), Planning Commission at the level of Secretary to the Government of India, Member-Secretary, National Transport Development Policy Committee and presently Director (Research), Asian Institute of Transport Development (AITD) was the Guest of honour. The programme covered a variety of subject areas including engineering and non-engineering measures related to road safety. The guest of honour, Mr. B.N. Puri addressed the participants by highlighting the involvement of AITD in various road safety related activities and programmes. He highlighted that although presently more attention is being given to the Aviation and Railway sector but the incessant rise in the number of road accidents derives a special attention towards the road sector.
The Chief Guest, Smt. Keshni Anand Arora, shared her valuable thoughts and experiences with the participants. She mentioned how an accident can impact your life by sharing her own tragic experience when she met with an accident with her daughter. She addressed the audience by her words of wisdom by quoting 'We can change the condition for the next generation by making an attempt today'. She was well-versed with the fact that the capacity building for all professionals is not an easy task at all and therefore, there is a need to have an integrated system for organizing such workshops. The technical part of the programme included lectures by Mr. D.P. Gupta, Mr. H.C. Sethi, Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Aggarwal and Dr. P.K Sarkar on various topics like Comparative Overview of Global and Indian Road Safety Scenario, Various Parameters of Road Safety-Traffic Control Devices for Roads, Night Time Visibility Measures for Road Safety and ITS and its applications in Road Safety.
The session got more interested with the presence of SSP Chandigarh, Shri Shashank Anand who talked about the current traffic conditions of the city and the various measures taken to manage the increased traffic in the city bearing in mind the safety of people. Further, the increase in the number of vehicles on roads has also resulted in an alarming increase in the number of challans which he quantified as an issue that needs to be resolved in the future. He affirmed that of all the accidents occurred in Chandigarh, more than 50 percent were caused by the vehicles having Chandigarh Registration Plate. He said that the Chandigarh Police is targeting to reduce the accident rates by 50 percent by the year 2020. He gladly informed about the progress of building about 100 kilometers of cycle tracks in the city and addressed the issue of lack of awareness among the people about its usability. He had a quite interactive discussion with the participants and exhorted the audience to actively participate in the road safety mission by not allowing the children to drive before the appropriate age. He also urged the audience to follow the traffic rules in order to educate and make the new road users aware of importance of the rules and regulations. The enthusiasm got even more boosted when Road Safety Icon, Mr. H.S. Sidhu addressed the audience and shared his personal experiences with the audience. He quoted that One Death is a tragedy, while Million Deaths are just a statistic, therefore urges the audience to be more alert towards the rising issue of road safety. The training programme was not only confined to the theoretical knowledge about road safety, it also included field exercise for the participants to implement the gained knowledge by auditing the selected Chandigarh Roads. The valedictory programme was presided by Lt. Gen. (Rtd.) B.S. Dhaliwal, technical Advisor to Chief Minister, Punjab who talked on the issues of the increase in accidents and the need of out-of-box thinking to reduce such increasing rate of accidents. He stressed on the role of individual in the road safety by sharing lot of incidents from his own life. The course was attended by 62 sponsored participants from all over India.
