Assam’s Darrang district Transport department for the first in the recent history of the district has started forming Road Safety Women Club in each gaon panchayat of the district.
This is a unique way of spreading road safety messages to the rural masses at the grassroots and making Darrang district an ideal place of road safety followers.
The initiative has been taken under the aegis of the District Road Safety Committee.
This sustainable road safety initiative has been launched ceremonially by Ghanshyam Dass, the deputy commissioner, Darrang on Thursday.
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In this connection a programme on road safety capacity building of the women self help groups (SHG) has been organized at the multipurpose community hall of Paschim Mangaldai Development Block.
More than 100 women members of eleven gaon panchayats under the development block participated.
While inaugurating the programme which is going to cover all the gaon panchayats under different development blocks of the district, the deputy commissioner underlined the importance of sensitizing the rural women who can play a pivotal role in educating their members in the family and their surroundings as well regarding road safety norms and thus help the society in checking the road safety tragedies.
“Women are the key persons in a family. They are known for their patience for supporting the family in all ways, hence they can major role in motivating for obeying road safety norms in their surroundings too,” the deputy commissioner reiterated.
The deputy commissioner released a guide book on road safety published in Assamese while he distributed a small kit with road safety tools like set of fluorescent stickers, guide books, pocket calendars, flex banner etc to each new club under the respective gaon panchayats.
An especially designed mobile van with a tableau combined with a road safety theme song and a short documentary was also flagged by the deputy commissioner in presence of district transport officer Kumar Sanjib Krishna, district information and public relations officer Monimala Gogoi and other senior officers of the stakeholder government departments.
The inaugural session was followed by a technical and interactive session where Ainul Haque, assistant executive engineer, PWD, NH, Mangaldai Sub Division, Padma Lochan Hazarika, motor vehicle inspector and senior journalist Hemanta Kr Baruah presented their deliberations as the resource persons.
Notably, the district transport department as a part of their 100 days road safety IEC programme has taken up series of innovative activities among the youths including essay contest and smartphone short movie contest among others reportedly with a satisfactory response.