On the occasion of the third anniversary of the launch of the Safe Drive, Save Life project today, chief minister Mamata Banerjee attended an event at Harish Chatterjee Street crossing today and highlighted the achievements of this project.

Expressing her thanks and gratitude to the police officers for working round the clock to make this project a grand success, the chief minister announced that the number of accidental deaths has gone down by 27 per cent.

“While in India, only seven days are dedicated for awareness campaign in promoting road safety, our government runs this Safe Life, Safe Drive campaign throughout the year. There has been a drop in accident and improvement in road safety over the years. There has been a 35 per cent reduction of the total number of road accidents from 2016 to 2018. In Kolkata Police area, the fatalities have decreased from 407 in 2016 to 294 in 2018 which means a drop of 27 per cent drop in the number of accidental death,” the chief minister said.

Revealing the data on the number of accidents and accident-related deaths in the state, Miss Banerjee said that while the number of road accidents has dropped by 27 per cent in the state, the number of death in road accidents have lessened by 17 per cent between the years 2016 to 2018. Emphasising on the need of safe and secure driving, she said, “Life is most precious. Please do not indulge in rough driving to save one or two minutes. And always wear helmets while riding bikes.” She also mentioned that neighbouring states of Jharkhand and Odisha have taken similar initiatives following the success of Safe Life, Safe Drive campaign.

Praising the efforts taken by the police in the last month to curb the reckless driving, Miss Banerjee announced the merger of Kolkata Police Hospital with SSKM Hospital.

“Kolkata Police Hospital will be merged with SSKM Hospital to improve its infrastructure and 50 per cent of the bed will be reserved for the staff in police force.” Earlier in the day she visited the police hospital and took stock of the health condition of the traffic constable who got injured after being dragged by a rogue biker.