ARINDAM GANGULY, OP
Bhubaneswar: In a decisive step towards strengthening road safety under the ‘Come Home Safe’ vision of Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, the state Commerce & Transport department has announced the launch of the second phase of Zero Accident Day (ZAD) campaign in Keonjhar.
The district, identified as one of Odisha’s major accident hotspots, has also been recognised by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and IIT Madras as part of the Top 100 districts for Data-Driven Hyperlocal Interventions (DDHI), underscoring the urgency of this initiative. The ZAD initiative has already demonstrated encouraging results in Bhubaneswar, where fatal accidents have shown a declining trend due to data-driven interventions and community participation. Building on this success, the government is now extending the campaign to Keonjhar with a targeted and comprehensive action plan. A high-level strategy meeting chaired by the department’s Principal Secretary Usha Padhee, and Transport Commissioner Amitabh Thakur, and attended by the Collector of Keonjhar, finalised the roadmap to reduce accidents and fatalities in the district. The meeting brought together state nodal officers, the district administration, and technical experts from RBG Labs, IIT Madras, and the department’s technical consultant. During the meeting, IIT Madras presented a 14-day decentralised, data-driven ZAD action plan focusing on targeted interventions at identified accident-prone areas. As part of the campaign, a series of multi-layered initiatives will be rolled out across blocks and villages.
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These include community-level dialogues under the banner of “Cha Au Charcha” near accident-prone zones, training of ‘Sahayaks’ and ‘Raahveers’ as first responders, awareness sessions for schoolchildren to nurture them as future safe drivers, specialised training for drivers working in mining and industrial areas, and public messaging through All India Radio programmes, among other activities designed to promote road safety awareness at scale. Additionally, a teaser campaign on ZAD will be launched in the district at the earliest to highlight the importance of the initiative and sensitise citizens about road safety as a collective responsibility. Speaking on the occasion, Padhee said the positive changes witnessed in the Capital City of Bhubaneswar following the observance of ZAD demonstrate the effectiveness of this campaign. She added that with Keonjhar witnessing high volumes of heavy vehicle movement, the focus must now be on driving behavioural change through sustained awareness. Road safety, she emphasised, is a shared responsibility, and the success of the campaign depends on collective participation and commitment.