The objective of the India Chapter of the International Road Federation is to reduce road fatalities by half by the year 2030
Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, inaugurated a webinar series under the head ‘Road Safety Challenges in India and Preparation of an Action Plan’ that was organised by the India Chapter of the International Road Federation (IRF), a global body working for better and safer roads worldwide on February 9, 2021. The series focused on meeting the target of reducing road fatalities in the country by half by the year 2030. IRF India Chapter, as an integral part of its mission of road safety, has planned a series of 12 webinars on this theme to be held through the year, which will focus on the important aspects of the five Es of road safety, viz. education, enforcement, engineering, environment and emergency care.
“After the non-realisation of the target of UN Decade of Action for Road Safety (2011-2020), the global community had decided on 12 voluntary targets to be realised for road safety by all countries. The first target thus identified is for establishing an action plan for road safety by 2020 for realising the target of ‘50 by 30’, i.e. reducing the road fatalities to half by 2030 aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals,” said K K Kapila, President Emeritus, International Road Federation.
“As the year 2020 was severely impacted by the pandemic, most countries had to concentrate only on health sector activities to save lives with a relentless fight to contain the medical emergencies caused by the pandemic. As such, we propose to establish a very carefully thought out action plan for road safety in India by December 2021,” Kapila added. The webinar series is designed for all stakeholders of road safety in central and state governments, industries, corporates, all skilled professionals and the general public across all levels of society to participate and contribute by giving ideas and information to the development of an all-encompassing and sustainable action plan.
“The aim of the series is to educate and campaign for road safety and its components, particularly by addressing all the requirements as detailed in the five pillars of road safety. This action plan will then be recommended to the central and state governments for their adoption for the decade (2021-2030) with a systematic execution plan, pursued consistently with necessary funding support, to realise the target of reducing the road deaths by half by 2030,” commented Dr. S Gangopadhyay, President, India Chapter of IRF. The inaugural webinar was on the subject of ‘Road Safety Engineering and Challenges’ considering that the period January 18 to February 17 is being observed as the National Road Safety Month.