A meeting of the District Road Safety Committee was held under the chairmanship of Deputy Commissioner Ramesh Kumar here at Kathua on Tuesday. On this occasion, members of the committee comprising SSP Kathua, SP Traffic Rural, Chief Medical Officer, Chief Education Officer, Executive Engineer PWD (R&B), Executive Engineer PWD (R&B) Basohli, representative of the BRO, National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), Red Cross Society Kathua were present.Initiating the proceedings, the Regional Transport Officer, Kathua, Amarjeet Singh who is the Member Secretary of the committee apprised the committee that there are 60,000 vehicles registered in the district since inception out of which seven thousand are commercial vehicles and rest are private vehicles. Deputy Commissioner directed the Motor Vehicle Department and the Traffic Police to organize Road safety awareness programs in collaboration with the Education, Health and other departments for the teenage drivers and also for the professional drivers of passenger service vehicles especially the drivers of school buses. Chief Education Officer was directed to issue directions to all the schools to strictly follow the guidelines of the Supreme Court regarding maintenance of the school buses and installation of speed governors and not to allow any student who is without license or helmet. He directed the RTO Traffic department and the local police to check the overloading in passenger vehicles particularly during the peak hours.RTO Kathua apprised the committee that MVD has resorted to suspension/cancellation of route permits and licenses in case of repeated offences and has also started off-loading the excess load in case of goods vehicles entering the state.
CMO Kathua was also directed to maintain ambulances in ready mode in all the locations/blocks to meet any emergency and augment the blood bank facility in coordination with the Red Cross Society.It was decided in the meeting that the Tehsildars/Naib Tehsildars shall also enforce the traffic regulations and book the offenders for violation of Motor Vehicles Act, in their respective jurisdictions for which powers have already been delegated by Transport Department.RTO Kathua shall organize a workshop to educate them on the relevant provisions of the law and the procedure to be followed.Deputy Commissioner directed all the members to make coordinated efforts to ensure safety on roads and prompt emergency care.