Chhatrapur: Ganjam district has recorded the second-highest number of road casualties in the state. This has become a cause of concern for people of the district as well as the Transport department. Significantly, the Transport department has laid thrust on road safety awareness drive and has decided to create traffic park-cumtraining centres in all the towns of the district. The department has emphasised on hastening the road safety awareness campaign across the district so as to bring down the mishaps and related deaths on road.
For traffic parks, the department requires land in all the towns and has asked the Commissioner of the Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC), the executive officer of Hinjili Municipality and 16 notified area councils (NACs) to identify suitable patches of land. It was also leant that the department has initiated ‘Rakshak’ training programme for volunteers with an aim of bringing down the number of road casualties to 10 percent. Besides, the places in the district where accidents are frequent were identified as black spots.
According to the Transport department, 520 volunteers have been imparted ‘Rakshak’ training and they will be deployed at accidentprone stretches and black spots such as Berhampur town, Lanjipalli, Haridakhandi, Chhatrapur, Kukudakhandi, Golanthara, Jagannathpur Chhak, Agastinuagaon, Digapahandi and Keshpur. Moreover, 80 constables and home guards of Berhampur and Ganjam police districts have also received ‘Rakshak’ training.
