Bhubaneswar: As incidents of road mishaps continue to rise, the State government has decided to provide refresher training to all the drivers. According to sources, the government will be bearing the training expenses and drivers have to undergo this 2-day training every 3 months. Moreover, the government has directed the RTOs to conduct flash raids to check overloading and fitness of the vehicles.
At a review meeting here on Tuesday, the Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi also directed the concerned departments of the State government to submit a report on the execution of Supreme Court (SC) committee guidelines on road safety within 15 days.
Also Read: SC panel to review road safety status in Odisha on Sept...
The chief secretary also discussed various aspects of road safety and irresponsible driving with all the district collectors via video conferencing. According to sources, the meeting laid emphasis on steps to curb drunken driving, mobile phone usage during driving, overloading, over speeding and also discussed steps needed to be taken to provide incentives to rescuers at an accident site.
Also Read:Driver’s carelessness cause for Athmallick bus mishap: RTO report
“Mainly, we are emphasizing on strict enforcement to curb drunken driving, overloading, over speeding and usage of mobile phones. Moreover, the focus is also on implementation of various policies like Road Safety policy, Hoarding policy, school bus policy and Good Samaritan policy. Under the Good Samaritan policy we discussed how to reward people who act as rescuers at the accident spot. Moreover, emphasis was also laid on road repair,” said Transport Commissioner Chandrasekhar Kumar.
Notably, while 4,217 persons died in road accidents in Odisha, more than 10,000 were injured in 2015. While 1,350 deaths were on account of overloading, 427 deaths were due to drunken driving.