Chief Secretary, B B Vyas Thursday asked DCs to submit a District Road Safety Plan by 15th of September, 2017, inter-alia, incorporating all necessary measures to reduce road accidents and fatalities by 50% by 2020. Chairing the 5th meeting of the State Road Safety Council here today, Chief Secretary asked DCs to consult all stakeholders; particularly the traffic department in the formulation of the District Road Safety Plan, which should be finalized by 15th of September, 2017. PW(R&B) Department was also asked to prepare a plan on the safety of all roads by 15th of September, 2017, besides on the basis of data related to road accidents, asked to identify twenty roads and start improvement work immediately.
“Our resolve must be to work towards ensuring that road accidents that claim precious human lives and cause disability and injury are minimized. All required measures in terms of effective regulation, better road engineering and greater use of technology need to be a taken with full commitment” Chief Secretary observed and urged the allied departments to work in unison towards implementation of the State Road Safety Policy and directions of the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety.
The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary, Home, Director General of Police, Principal Secretary, Finance, Administrative Secretaries of the departments of H&UDD, PW(R&B) & Transport, IG Kashmir, IG Traffic, Transport Commissioner, J&K, Director, School Education, Kashmir, Director Health Services, Kashmir and other senior officers. Divisional Commissioner, Jammu, DCs of all 22 districts and other senior officer’s participated via video conferencing.Chief Secretary stressed on expediting the work on establishment of Institute of Driving Training & Research (IDTR) and Inspection & Certification Centre (ICC) at Jammu and Srinagar. While IDTR at Jammu and ICC at Samba has already been approved by the MoRTH, GoI, Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir informed the Council that land has been identified at Srinagar and Pulwama for establishing IDTR & ICC.
Timelines were fixed for carrying out activities related to strengthening of Trauma Centres, implementation of Intelligent Traffic System, removal of encroachments, creation of parking slots, undertaking repairs of vulnerable roads etc. Transport Department was asked to start a website and host all details about issues related to road safety.The DCs were asked to upload the minutes of the quarterly meetings of the District Road Safety Committee for information of all the stakeholders, so that time bound action could be taken on the actionable points. Chief Secretary reiterated that road safety awareness programmes must be made a continuous process and conducted throughout the year.It was decided to hold another meeting of the State Road Safety Council to review the progress in respect of critical issues in the third week of September, 2017.