Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday said the government was making all efforts to reduce road accidents but was not getting much success. Addressing the gathering at the annual meeting of the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA), Gadkari urged the industry to use corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds to organise awareness programmes, especially in schools.
“We are trying our best, but we are not getting much success… I can admit that this is one of the failures,” Gadkari said. He said around 5 lakh road accidents take place in India every year, of which 30,000 accidents occur in institutional areas like schools. Of the 1.68 lakh deaths, 66 percent of the victims are in the age group of 18-36 years.
Gadkari appealed to the auto industry to use CSR funds to educate people and students. “We need cooperation from media, social organisations, industry and NGOs. You don’t need to support the government financially, but with your own initiatives through CSR, if you can organise programmes and contribute to the cause, it will be a great thing. Many people are doing this, but you need to find out what are the effective programmes by which we can change human behaviour,” he said.
He also stressed on focusing on schools. Gadkari said, “If you can focus on schools because they are the future generation and if we can change their mindset, it can be a very good thing. We need to plunge accidents by 50 percent, but still we are not getting good success.”
“Accidents have reduced by 35-40 percent in one district in Assam because the main culprit for accidents is road engineering. I always keep warning my engineers that you are responsible. But still, I feel the problem of the society is neither fear nor respect for the law,” he said.
