“The Punjab Government under the visionary leadership of the Chief Minister, Captain Amarinder Singh under the Mission Tandrust Punjab aims to provide a healthy living environment to the people of the state and curbing road fatalities with zero tolerance is the focused area of the mission.” This was disclosed here today by the Transport Minister, Punjab, Mrs. Aruna Chaudhary here today on the eve of inking an MoU by the Punjab Government with Honda & WRI INDIA besides launching the Punjab Vision Zero campaign to tackle road fatalities to ensure safer roads for Punjab under Mission Tandrust Punjab.Initiating the campaign, the Transport Minister, Punjab, Mrs. Aruna Chaudhary elaborated that the objective of the MoU is to work towards devising a mechanism under which the road accidents in Punjab would be minimized. Mrs. Chaudhary further stated that a committee consisting of Principal Secretary, Transport, ADGP Traffic, Mission Director, Tandrust Punjab Mission and Secretary PWD would closely coordinate the activities and monitor the programme. Lauding the efforts of Honda and WRI INDIA, the Minister said that State Government would be working closely with these groups to ensure constant reduction in the road fatalities.The minister also divulged that 10 accident prone districts namely Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Rupnagar, SAS Nagar Mohali, Fatehgarh Sahib, Patiala, SBS Nagar, Moga and Gurdaspur have been identified in the state in which the project would be undertaken initially. It was also observed that road safety is a multifactor problem, encompassing vehicle conditions, road user behavior and road environment. So, the theme of the Punjab Vision Zero Forum is 'Towards Zero Traffic Deaths'. The forum would focus on policies, best-practices and institutional mechanism for adopting safer road design and engineering for cities.It is also noteworthy that India has the dubious distinction of having one of the worst road safety records in the world, with over 140,000 fatal road crashes reported last year. This is despite low levels of traffic congestion compared to other developed countries with higher vehicular volumes. In 2018, there were 6400 road incidents in Punjab that led to approximately 4300 deaths and 2800 injured.
M/s Honda will be putting in efforts and funds and WRI India as knowledge partner to make a team with Transport Department of Punjab Government and Traffic Police towards realizing the objective. The Trained manpower will be deployed to conduct fatality audit of accidents. The compiled audit data would prompt the authorities to take necessary corrective measures.On the Occasion it was also announced by Director General Corporate Affairs M/s Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt. Ltd. Mr. Harbhajan Singh that Honda would provide 100 motor cycles to the traffic police and the traffic education cell for the purpose of assisting the victims of the mishap and patrolling. He also said that Honda will provide full assistance to transport department for newly proposed automated driving test centers to come up at Batala and Malerkotla. Also present on the occasion included Principal Secretary Transport Mr. K. Siva Prasad, Mission Director Tandrust Punjab Mr. K.S. Pannu, ADGP Traffic Dr. S.S. Chauhan, Secretary PWD Punjab Mr. Hussan Lal, State Transport Commissioner Mr. Dilraj Singh, Traffic Advisor Mr. Navdeep Asija, Director General Corporate Affairs M/s Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt. Ltd. Mr. Harbhajan Singh and CSR Head Mr. Sharad Pradhan, Head Road Safety of WRI INDIA Sarika Panda Bhatt and Mr. Sukhwinder Singh Brar.