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Government of Punjab launches ‘Vision Zero’ campaign to curb road fatalities

Government of Punjab, WRI India & Honda ink MoU for road safety with the launch of Punjab Vision Zero campaign in Chandigarh on February 6.

“The Punjab Government under the visionary leadership of the Chief Minister, Captain Amarinder Singh under the Mission Tandrust Punjab aims to provide a healthy living environment to the people of the state and curbing road fatalities with zero tolerance is the focused area of the mission.” This was disclosed here today by the Transport Minister, Punjab, Mrs. Aruna Chaudhary here today on the eve of inking an MoU by the Punjab Government with Honda & WRI INDIA besides launching the Punjab Vision Zero campaign to tackle road fatalities to ensure safer roads for Punjab under Mission Tandrust Punjab.

The minister also divulged that 10 accident prone districts namely Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Rupnagar, SAS Nagar Mohali, Fatehgarh Sahib, Patiala, SBS Nagar, Moga and Gurdaspur have been identified in the state in which the project would be undertaken initially.

It was also observed that road safety is a multifactor problem, encompassing vehicle conditions, road user behavior and road environment. So, the theme of the Punjab Vision Zero Forum is 'Towards Zero Traffic Deaths'. The forum would focus on policies, best-practices and institutional mechanism for adopting safer road design and engineering for cities.

It is also noteworthy that India has the dubious distinction of having one of the worst road safety records in the world, with over 140,000 fatal road crashes reported last year. This is despite low levels of traffic congestion compared to other developed countries with higher vehicular volumes. In 2018, there were 6400 road incidents in Punjab that led to 4600 deaths and 2800 injured.

M/s Honda will be providing financial support and WRI India as knowledge partner to make a team with Transport Department of Punjab Government and Traffic Police towards realizing the objective. The Trained manpower will be deployed to conduct fatality audit of accidents. The compiled audit data would prompt the authorities to take necessary corrective measures.

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