NEW DELHI: Keeping in view the falling standards of road safety in the national capital, the Asian Institute of Transport Development (AITD), along with a few other organisations, has started training 5,500 engineers in this respect.
“We are conducting a one-week course on road safety. All engineers who pass this will also be trained on-field to conduct road safety audits,” said Professor PK Sarkar, director of AITD, adding that institutions such as IITs, NITs, Central Road Research Institute and School of Planning and Architecture were helping the AITD in conducting the training.
According to Sarkar, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, in a bid to improve road safety at the construction stage, is also planning an accreditation system for engineers who pass the training schedule.
“Accreditation on the lines of licensing will be provided to the engineers to ensure that the audits of the roads are conducted in a proper manner,” he said. Till date, around 1,500 engineers have completed the training. “We aim to train all the 5,500 by December end,” the AITD director said.
The capital has seen freak accidents in the past one week on the newly-inaugurated Signature Bridge, prompting experts to zero in on road safety in the city. Last year, the city witnessed 1,565 fatal accidents and around 1,584 people lost their lives in road mishaps, according to Delhi Traffic Police data. In 2016, the national capital witnessed 1,548 accidents and 1,691 people died in road mishaps.
Sarkar said roads might appear safe to the layman but there were many technical aspects which made them unsafe. “Even the non-availability of delineators is a road safety liability,” he said.Sarkar was particularly critical of roads in the Dwarka area of the city and its surroundings. “The road safety in this area is poor. There is no signage, or lane line markings. Also, there are some important roads in the area, for instance the one connecting Gurugram. Hence, there is an urgent need to improve the safety of the roads in the area as well as the city to avoid fatalities,” he said.