Kohima: A year-long Road Safety Awareness Campaign has been launched in Nagaland with Chief Minister T R Zeliang administering the pledge to drivers of various government departments and VIPs.
The programme was organised by the union ministry of road transport and highways in collaboration with transport department of Nagaland.
“Road safety is becoming a matter of serious concern in today’s fast moving world, where road transport has become an integral part of everyone’s life,” said T R Zeliang and hoped that the campaign would go a long way in educating people on various road safety measures.
He said various studies indicated that deaths and injuries on roads can be reduced significantly through the introduction of road safety measures or strategies.
State Minister for Transport, Paiwang Konyak said urgent attention was needed to improve road safety with a holistic approach.
Statistics, he said, indicate that about 1.5 lakh people were killed in the country in road accidents in 2015.
There has been an alarming increase in fatalities caused by run overs, traffic accidents and serious injuries during 2010-15.
Quoting national accident record, he said Nagaland has the least road crash fatality with 30 deaths in 54 accidents reported in 2015 but with the steep terrain of the land, they were fatal in nature, he added.