Kolkata: State Transport minister, Snehasish Chakraborty on Wednesday said that awareness is the key factor to reduce accidents, during the inaugural programme of the Traffic Safety Week 2025 in Salt Lake.
According to the minister, since the commencement of the Safe Drive Save Life (SDSL) initiative of the Mamata Banerjee government, the number of accidents both fatal and non-fatal has reduced significantly.
Also, he mentioned that overspeeding is the only cause of most of the accidents.
He said: “Every death is unfortunate but in terms of the number of fatal accidents, Bengal is in last place among all the metropolitan cities in India.”
The Transport minister further said that overspeeding is one of the major causes behind the accidents. “We have been mulling over speed management for the past few years. We have already issued a notification with speed restrictions. If we can control the speed, the number of accidents will also decrease. West Bengal is the only state to implement the speed management system, Chakraborty added.
The minister also mentioned that with the help of the Information Technology (IT) department a smartphone application is being developed. Through this App, the drivers of the buses can be tracked and also can monitor the speed as well. During the programme, helmets were distributed among the students and they were asked to make people aware of road safety.
Actor-turned-politician Dev was also present during the programme. He said that those who will not wear helmets should not be given fuel for their two-wheelers.
State Fire and Emergency Services minister Sujit Bose, Mayor of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC), Krishna Chakraborty, Additional Director General (ADG), Traffic, Rajesh Kumar Singh, Inspector General (IG), Traffic, Gaurav Sharma and Sukesh Kumar Jain along with Superintendent of Police (SP), Traffic, Raj Narayan Mukherjee, Commissioner of Police (CP), Bidhannagar, Mukesh and other senior officials graced the occasion.