'40 in 40' programme initiated to help slash number of road accidents in Bengal

Kolkata: The West Bengal Traffic Police has taken up the "40 in 40" programme to check road accidents in the areas under different police stations that record the highest number of accidents in the state.

Under the initiative that has been named as "40 in 40", which is a part of the ongoing Safe Drive Save Life campaign, 40 police stations across the state have been identified, where 36 percent of the total number of accidents take place. Steps will be taken to reduce the number of accidents in these areas by 40 percent by the end of 2018.

Though Bengal's role in reducing the number of accidents in the past two years has been appreciated by the Road Safety Committee of Supreme Court, the stride to bring down the number of road accidents continues, following the direction of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Steps to identify the 40 police stations out of 400 in the state under the jurisdiction of state police and to check accidents there, have been taken to ensure further improvement in road safety in Bengal.

Vivek Sahay, Additional Director General (Traffic and Road Safety), said: "We are working with a target of reducing the total number of accidents in areas under the 40 police stations by 40 percent in 2018."

It may be mentioned that ensuring improvement in road safety is a continuous process. So once the success of reducing 40 percent of road accidents in these areas is achieved by the end of 2018, the state traffic police will take necessary steps, so that further improvement in checking accidents can be achieved.

The team of West Bengal Traffic Police has gone through the records on a day-to-day basis and prepared the data, identifying the 40 police stations and steps, including setting up of speed breakers, constructing pedestrian paths at "chowrastas" (intersections of two major roads).

Ensuring proper illumination has been taken up, besides creating awareness among people in the area and enforcing traffic norms to reduce the rate of accidents. It will also be looked into whether there are any "black spots" (stretches of roads where accidents often take place) in the areas under the jurisdiction of these police stations.

It may be recalled that 59 black spots were identified on different roads, including the highways, in 2016. Necessary steps have been taken to check accidents in these spots and now, a new survey has been initiated for 2017 to identify if there are any more such "black spots".

Out of 40 police stations, six including Ashokenagar, Barasat, Madhyamgram and Habra police stations are in North 24-Parganas. Four police stations each are in Howrah Rural, Barrackpore Police Commissionerate and West Midnapore.

The only police station in Malda district that has come in the list is English Bazar police station and it has recorded seven accidents in between March 1 and 14.

There are two police stations out of the 40, each of which has recorded six accidents, while five other police stations recorded five accidents each in the same time period.

Though the total number of accidents has reduced from 13,208 in 2015 to 11,670 in 2017, the state's traffic police are going all out to further check the rate of accidents across the state with more stress on these 40 police station areas.