ITANAGAR, Oct 23: Deputy Chief Minister, Chowna Mein assured the creation of a separate Head Account for Road Safety Fund and to provide fund under it in the coming budget for acquisition of equipment, vehicles, road safety activities, training, and to carry out road safety awareness campaigns in the state.
Chairing a review meeting of State Road Safety Council in the Civil Secretariat here on Monday, he asked the Director of Transport and Police Department to send the proposals, including all the parameters before the coming budget.
Mein observed that despite the growing general awareness on road safety measures, drivers and road users normally do not adhere to the traffic rules, which causes an increase in fatal road accidents in the state. He called for strict implementation of road safety measures to minimize the occurrence of road accidents in the state.
He asked the Police and the Transport Department to conduct regular checks and to deal strictly with the violators of traffic rules and road safety measures as per the provision under the law to minimize the rate of road accidents.
He also stressed on implementation of all road safety parameters right from designing and construction of roads and asked to keep provision of pedestrian path, traffic signals, zebra crossing,
parking place, drainage, etc during the construction of roads. He also said to look into these parameters during the construction of the four-lane highway from Itanagar to Banderdewa.
It was informed that four Trauma Care Centres at Tezu, Roing, Bomdila and Ziro are coming up in this financial year, and similar centres in other district headquarters will be constructed in phases. It was also decided to procure a CT Scan machine and ambulance and to make the already constructed four driving training schools functional.
Measures to strengthen manpower and procurement of equipment for road safety measures, besides various ways and means to minimize the road accidents were also discussed in the meeting.
Chief Secretary, Shakuntala D Gamlin also called to ensure that driving licence is not issued to under age or unqualified drivers. She asked the departments to put signage of speed limit in the township area and also to put electronic traffic signals in the junctions to minimize road accidents. She also suggested installing CCTVs in vulnerable areas to catch violators. She also said to strictly check over- loading of public transport systems like Tata Sumos and buses.
Earlier, Dani Sallu, Secretary Transport cum Member secretary, SRSC highlighted the aims and objectives of the meeting and also read out the decisions taken in the last meeting.
Atop Lego, Chief Engineer, PWD (SIDP) cum Nodal Officer SRSC, T Karga, SP cum Nodal Officer SRSC and Nyali Ete, Director Transport made PowerPoint presentations on road safety measures adopted by their departments and data related to the causes and occurrence of accidents in the state and country.
