Meghalaya conferred road safety award

New Delhi: Meghalaya on Monday received the road safety award in the North East states and hill states category.
Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping, Nitin Gadkari, while giving away the award, emphasized the need to put in place an action oriented plan to bring down the number of road accidents in the country.
Inaugurating a two day regional conference of the International Road Federation (IRF) here, the minister said a multi pronged approach is required to tackle the issue of road safety.
“While on one hand we need to build roads that are safe, with proper placement of curbs, under passes and safety features for pedestrians, the automobile industry also needs to pitch in with effective safety measures in the vehicles they produce,” the minister said.
He also stressed on the importance of educating the public about their roles in ensuring road safety, and said that celebrities could be involved in such awareness campaigns.
The India Chapter of International Road Federation organized this two day conference on the theme ‘Road Safety Initiatives: Status and the Way Forward’. The United Nations had set a target of reducing the road accidents by 50 per cent by the end of the decade 2011-2020.
The purpose of the conference is to evaluate the work done so far at this mid point in the decade, and identify the gaps that still remain both at the policy level and in implementation.
Various technical sessions have been planned on themes such as decade of action for road safety, road safety management, safer roads and mobility, safer vehicles, safer road users, post crash response and funding of road safety and monitoring and evaluation.
It may be mentioned that the Road Safety Council of Meghalaya is headed by the Transport Minister. The Transport department is the nodal agency and other departments involved in maintaining the council include PWD (Roads), Home (Police), Health and Education departments.