Indore: Over 7000 students took part in the inauguration of the 31st traffic safety week that took place at Abhay Prashal Complex on Monday. Home minister Bala Bachchan, DIG Ruchi Vardhan Mishra, SP (HQ) Suraj Verma, other senior police officials and district collector Lokesh Jatav were present on the occasion.
Speaking on the occasion, Bachchan said that in 2018, there were 5 lakh accidents in the country and 1.5 lakh deaths, and the government had to bear a loss of Rs 55,000 cr. In the state there were 10,434 accidents in which 322 persons died and the state government bore a loss of Rs 533 cr.
DIG Mishra said, “Our priority is safety of commuters. We are running awareness drives in the city instead of slapping fines for traffic violation. We are more interested in making people follow traffic rules on their own instead of putting any pressure on them. People should join us and follow rules as their responsibility.”
“Proper traffic management is a major challenge for us, and traffic awareness has to be instilled amongst youngsters. We have decided to have 12 themes in traffic awareness, which we will share with the public by the end of this month. We are also taking suggestions from public and we will discuss and change plans according to the feedback,” said collector Jadav.
On the occasion, Bala Bachchan flagged off a Walkathon and a rally of women riders wearing various types of helmets. A quiz competition for school students on current affairs and traffic sense was also organised in which four teams participated.
Deputy Superintendent of Police (Traffic) Umakant Choudhary said “Nukkad Nataks were held at White Church, Navlakha Square, Choithram Square. A painting competition was held at Traffic Park in which about 1200 students participated. We also organised a free eye checkup camp for about 200 commuters. On Tuesday, we are planning to have a kite flying event, where the kites will have awareness quotes written on them. We are also creating awareness among heavy vehicle drivers to have reflectors pasted on the rear end.”
