Page 59 - Traffic Infra Tech

COVER STORY PLUS

the GDP with so much difficulty and of state highways) which accounts
effort and investment (with millions of for 47 per cent of the road accidents “Total contribution of
people working in factories and sales and 52 per cent of the deaths in all the OEMs in the
and other areas), the road accidents road accidents. So we worked out a huge supply chain
deduct 3 per cent from the GDP. That nice strategy of concentrating on the
is the opportunity lost. It is so huge. highways and our police force and the of auto industry to
It is a very serious problem that is enforcement agencies are working the GDP is only 7.2
challenging the country. In Telangana against three things: Over speeding, per cent. While the
too we have similar figures. Out of drunken driving and overloading. We industry adds 7.2 per
7219 people dying in road accidents use a good number of laser speed cent to the GDP with
in one year, 50 percent are in the age guns to control the speed and challan so much difficulty
group of 15 years to 35. And who the people who over speed. We are not
are these people? They are the bread happy with the number of laser speed and effort and
earners. They work, earn money, have guns we have and would like to have investment (with
probably just got married, or have kids, at least a 1000 guns more. We use the millions of people
and have aspirations & dreams for the breath analysers to catch people who working in factories
kids. They want to send them to good drink and drive, and the weigh bridges and sales and other
schools, educate them well and see for overloading. areas), the road
them have better facilities than what All these are evidence based
they have today. But unfortunately all investigation and evidence based accidents deduct 3
these dreams are shattered when this prosecution. When we produce per cent from the
person dies. GDP. That is the
computerized evidence in the court of
So if you put in the India perspective law, we are able to get convictions. opportunity lost. It is
of 150,000 deaths, nearly 75,000 In drunken driving, we have arrested so huge”.
deaths are only in this age group more than 5600 people in the last one
which contributes to our demographic year and we were able to send nearly
dividend. Now here is a dent in our 1000 people behind the bars. year we observe 31st of January as an
demographic dividend that we are so accident free day in the entire state. If
proud of. We are not trying to scare people, you take the last three years’ average,
but are trying to bring a paradigm shift
We did a primary research to in the culture. We want it to become a 60 accidents take place in the state of
understand the causative factors. I habit that you should not drive fast, and Telangana, and 20 people die every
normally put these factors as ‘three that you should not drink and drive. day. This year on the accident free day,
majors and three minors’. The three there were only 20 accidents and three
major causative factors are: Over Hyderabad City is one city in India, deaths. So that is the amount of drive
speeding, Drunken Driving and there could be others too, where when we do. We do not leave even a single
Overloading (Overweight). These three people go for a party, for a drink, auto driver out of it. We involve every
contribute to more than 70 per cent they designate one among them as a truck driver, every school kid and every
of road accidents. The three minors driver, and have a nice party and come college student. Everybody is involved.
are: Not wearing a helmet, talking back home. We want to develop this All government officers take part - right
on mobile phone while driving and kind of culture. We want people to from the Chief Secretary to the Collector
not wearing a seat belt. These three be conscious of what is happening to and to the Block Officer, and right from
majors and three minors put together their own families as their families wait the DGP of the State to the constable.
account for 80 per cent of the total for them when they go out. So we are The awareness creation is huge. Industry
road accidents in the entire country, creating this kind of awareness. and all the IT companies participate.
and Telangana is no different. How do you create this As a result of this enforcement,
Another parameter: 50 percent of awareness? coupled with the creating of awareness/
the total deaths occur on the national Every year, like the rest of the country, education, we have saved 541 human
highways and state highways alone. in the week of January, we organise the lives in the last one year (from Sept 12,
That is 22 percent of the total road Road Safety Week. But we do not do it 2016 to Sept 12, 2017). This is because
length of the state (10 percent of for one week, we do it for three weeks of the twin policy of creating awareness
national highways and 12 percent -- in January and February. Typically every and massive high level enforcement.

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