Lucknow, Aug 30
Over 1.91 crore students studying in 1.31 lakh government primary and upper primary schools across Uttar Pradeh will now learn about road safety rules during morning assembly.
The basic education department has issued instructions to principals of these schools to hold a meeting for awareness of parents too in this regard.
This is being done on the initiative of the state Transport Department.
Ganesh Kumar, joint director, basic education, said the Department has approached the schools to spread awareness among children.
"Students will be told to not use mobile phones while crossing roads, to educate parents to not drive vehicles in high speed and use seat belts while driving," Kumar said.
These schools will display traffic rules and slogans on walls of their premises to draw students' attention towards road safety.
"A school transport safety committee will be constituted to raise awareness among the students to follow road signs like zebra lines, cross road when signal is red, avoid over speeding, follow road norms, traffic signs, highway codes, traffic hazards and related topics," he explained.
Instructions in this regard have been sent to all district-level officers to inform principals. The letter says transport department has expressed concern over increasing number of people killed in road accidents.
The Department is seeking cooperation of the basic education department to help reduce the number by spreading awareness of adhering to road safety rules.
It wants to educate and sensitise students at an early age so that they may also tell their parents and neighbours to follow road safety norms.
According to the Department, every year, a large number of road accidents occur in the state that results in irreparable loss of life and property.
Special emphasis is being laid on road safety by the government to control the number of deaths in these increasing accidents.
The state government has set a target to reduce the number of road accidents and deaths by 7-10 per cent in the current year as compared to 2021.
A Supreme Court committee on road safety is also reviewing the efforts being made by issuing regular instructions to bring down the death toll in road accidents.
The target is to reduce the death toll in road accidents by 50 per cent by 2030.
After analysing and publishing the statistics of road accidents every year, it was found that Uttar Pradesh recorded maximum road mishap deaths in 2020.
This is according to the report "Road Accidents in India 2020" released by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
The report mentioned that 7,859 people lost their lives in 13,695 road mishaps on highways in the state in 2020.
It also showed that 10,492 accidents took place in Uttar Pradesh in the recorded year, killing 5,984 people on NHs under NHAI, while 1,265 people died in 2,159 accidents on national highways under PWD.
On the national highways (expressways) under other departments, 610 people died in 1,044 accidents.
