Education programme to curb accident rate to start in three Commissionerates

After initiation in the jurisdiction under Kolkata Police, the mass education programme to reduce the rate of road accidents will start in three other police Commissionerates within the next one month.

The target is to bring around 20 lakh people including school goers under the direct purview of the programme.

It may be mentioned that it is a part of the state-wide “Safe drive, Save life” campaign which was mentored by the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Bidhannanagar, Howrah and Barrackpore are the three police Commissionerates where the programme will be initiated soon.

The programme had started first in the jurisdiction of the Kolkata Police and it was inaugurated by Banerjee on August 18 following a rally from Moulali to Dorina Crossing to make people aware of the hazards of flouting traffic norms.

With a successful beginning of the programme in Kolkata, senior officers of three police Commissionerates have decided to take up the same programme to make people in their respective areas educated about the safety measures that are to be taken both by pedestrians as well as drivers.

If everything goes as planned, the same will start in the three Commissionerates on September 20.

The decision is yet to be taken whether to inaugurate the programme on the same day in all three places or on three different dates. However, the preparatory work as it had also taken place in Kolkata has started in the rest three Commissionerates’ areas.

The NGO that will undertake the entire programme of mass education are working together with officers of the Commissionerates to identify the places where the training can be undertaken.

Basically drivers and school goers are the part of the mass education programmes. In a bid to create awareness among school goers, selected policemen and members of the NGO will be visiting the schools.

Similarly, learning clubs need to be opened in traffic guards. The representatives of the NGO are visiting bus stands, taxi stands and auto-rickshaw stands where they will be asking the drivers to play a small game, based on traffic rules, in cell phones and tabs.

The drivers, who will play the games, will become members of the learning clubs and will be motivated to visit the clubs as per the schedule.

In Kolkata, 200 policemen were engaged for the mass education programme. But it would not be possible to engage so many people for the project in other Commissionerates. Thus the plan of action is in the making to ensure smooth implementation of the project.

The Kolkata Police will be providing expertise to the Commissionerates.

It is learnt that interested civic police volunteers will also be brought under the purview of a special training programme.

The step to train the civic police volunteers were taken to make them moderators of the mass education programme and they can also disseminate their knowledge among people when they would be on-duty.

After the successful beginning in the three Commissionerates, the same would be introduced in other Commissionerates.