Bhubaneswar: Bishnupada Sethi, Principal Secretary Commerce & Transport has detailed out the initiatives to improve the road safety scenario in the State.
While stressing upon capacity building and training programme for road engineers of Odisha, Principal Secretary inaugurated on Friday at Heavy Motor Vehicle Driver Training Institute, Chhatia.
Road safety is a high priority area for the Government. Department of Transport is taking lot of initiatives to reduce road accidents in the state, said Mr.Sethi.
Principal Secretary, Commerce & Transport on several occasions has emphasised on the importance of capacity building for the road engineers.
It is first of its kind training programme in the state where in road engineers working on design and construction of National Highways and State Highways will attend the workshops on Road Safety.
About 200 engineers in four groups will take part in the two-day long training programme between July 29 and August 6. Every batch will have 50 participants; 45 engineers from Works department and five from National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Ram Prasad Panda, Chief General Manager, NHAI said, “Three factors are responsible for road accidents- roads, humans and vehicles. Two factors belong to engineers- roads and vehicles; they play a vital role. We have to work in a cohesive manner to reduce accidents.”
He further added, the training will enhance the knowledge of the engineers about road safety audit to identify, analyse and rectify road engineering defects which lead to accidents.
Addressing the gathering, Lalmohan Sethi, Additional Commissioner Transport, Road Safety said, “We often ignore the fact that in many cases faulty road designs are major cause of road accidents. The training is planned to understand how road accidents due to faulty designs, which factors influence risks, and what determines crash severity, and based on this understanding, to arrive at reliable conclusions on how to design roads to prevent accidents effectively and efficiently.”
Earlier in his welcome address, Sanjay Biswal, Joint Commissioner Transport, Road Safety emphasized on the importance of 4Es of Road Safety- Education, Enforcement, Engineering &Environment and Emergency care.
Among others Sudhi Ranjan Mishra, Superintend Engineer, ISAP, Works Dept. and Niranjan Padhi, Additional Chief Engineer, NH, Works were present on the occasion.
Pune-based Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT) is the knowledge partner for the event.
The experts from the institute shared their insight into road safety, road safety audit, basic principles like Haddon’ Matrix Safety System approach, Vision Zero, emerging technologies in road designs and construction.
Besides theory sessions, the road engineers will get practical training as well. They will also visit black spots along with CIRT team to understand rectification required to make the roads safer.