National Road Safety Month has been kicked off from Monday and the urgency to convert the earlier week-long event into a month-long one can well be understood. Year after year despite making the roads better and enforcing all-possible riding and driving safety protocols, it is ironic that accidents and the deaths arising out of them are on the rise. This is the national scenario and Arunachal Pradesh is unfortunately a part of the phenomenon. The lament that unites all the families that get devastated due to these accidents and deaths is that- How many more deaths and injuries are needed to inject the realisation among people that safe driving and caution is the only way. The month ahead will be full of such awareness programmes and one can only wish they herald something more effective.

The Union Road Transport and Highways Minister while inaugurating the Road Safety Month shared some alarming figures. 70%  of the deaths are in 18-45 years age group and if the current trend is not reversed, the daily death toll on Indian roads which is 415 now will rise further. In the world context, the roads in the country are really the ‘killing thoroughfares’ and it can be said without doubt that it’s a national problem now. It’s worth recalling that out of sheer compulsion of reversing this shabby image, India while participating in a conference in Sweden some couple of years back had professed to chase the vision of zero-road fatalities by 2030. And the immediate goal of the promise is to reduce road accidents and related deaths by 50 % within 2025. This is a huge challenge indeed and without people’s participation it’s well-nigh impossible to attain. In Arunachal the problem is two-fold. While roads are inadequate in numbers in terms of needs, their qualities, in most cases are abysmally low. This is aggravated by reckless behaviour of youths who forget all the safety needs their parents religiously reiterate before they leave their homes. The State DGP while speaking at the inaugural session of a two-day traffic management programme earlier this month had divulged that as many as 175 deaths caused by road accidents have been reported in the last three years in the state and the causes are all very familiar- reckless driving, drunk driving, rash driving or using mobile phones usage during driving. But it’s still a conundrum that as the fines increase and traffic rules get stricter, instances of violations are increasing and so as the accidents and deaths.

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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