In the background of the death of the Class IV student in Salt Lake, earlier this month, the state transport department is emphasising on implementation of enhanced road safety initiatives in Kolkata and panchayat areas.

Following the death of the 11-year-old child on 12 November, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had instructed the state transport department to take firm steps against such incidents and intensify the ‘Safe Drive Save Life’ initiative. In the background of the incident, the state transport department is now drafting guidelines or standard operating procedures for those driving in areas having heavy footfall to minimise and prevent accidents. According to the state transport minister Snehasis Chakraborty, the SOP is to include strict instructions and actions against reckless driving and picking up passengers from random points on their routes.

“We have urged the bus operators and owners to take steps and send instructions to their drivers to drive in a controlled manner and they have agreed to it,” informed Mr Chakraborty.

As learnt from the minister, the department is also mulling over to intensify and expand the ‘Safe Drive Save Life’ initiative. “For this, steps to increase awareness among the common citizens would be taken while extensive programmes would be adopted to intensify ‘Safe Drive Save Life initiative. There are committees of Safe Drive Save Life at block level. Those committees are holding meetings regularly, the number of which is second in the country. As the panchayat has been involved in the initiatives at block level, we have also had a discussion with the state panchayat (and rural development) minister,” he added.

As reiterated by Mr Chakraborty, the department, with the help of its knowledge partner IIT Kharagpur, is also exploring ways of minimising accidents in panchayat areas. The department is putting efforts to draft a list of reasons and accidents taking place in the panchayat areas for monitoring the incidents and taking steps to prevent those. “We have identified the black spots in our state. The black spots would be barricaded. Also, for the first time in the country we are also discussing extensively if speed management policy could be introduced in our state,” claimed the transport minister.

As the amount of damage depends on the speed at which a vehicle being driven hits an object, discussions are being held as to how much speed could be reduced. “Like in Kolkata, there is traffic rule surveillance done electronically, we are discussing if some mechanisms could be implemented in the districts. For example, options are being explored if speed could be restricted on highways entering the localities in the districts to minimise accidents,” he pointed out.

With the aim of improving road safety, the department has also decided to hold workshops and training of drivers at regular intervals.