Mumbai, December 4, 2017
Mahindra Truck and Bus Division (MTBD), a part of the Mahindra Group, launched a book titled, ‘Have a Safe Journey’, the world’s first collection of short stories that focus on the topic of road safety. This book launch is part of the ambitious road safety program with the hashtag #HaveaSafeJourney (#HASJ), initiated in 2016 between MTBD, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) and Natural Habitat Preservation (NHP) Centre.
Published by Amaryllis, the book comprises stories by bestselling writers such as Ashwin Sanghi, Anand Neelakantan and Shinie Antony. In addition the book also has tales drawn out from a countrywide story writing contest on road safety issues. The foreword of the book has been written by Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping. There is also a special message by Anand Mahindra, Chairman, Mahindra Group.
As part of the program, there was a contest held for the best 30 short stories related to road safety issues; the book launch is a culmination of the winners identified post the contest. This unique and creative idea to promote a social cause stems out of the firm belief that literature can serve as an effective medium to connect and engage with people, particularly the younger generation, for promoting awareness. Writing stories about negligence and casual approach to road safety norms can strike a chord with almost everyone. Mahindra is committed towards making India’s roads safer and the #HASJ initiative is a unique endeavour to leverage the power of literature towards this end. The book, which features stories that highlight issues of road safety, is aimed at social transformation to make our roads safer, to ensure that precious lives lost on roads and huge financial losses are curtailed.
Approximately 1.30 million people die each year globally as a result of road traffic crashes, according to the Global Road Safety Report, 2015 by the World Health Organisation. In India, around 1.5 lakh people die in nearly five lakh road accidents reported every year across the country. Due to such a large number of accidents, the country ends up losing over Rs 55,000 crore annually. In addition to this, such deaths cause lifelong trauma to the affected families, often impacting the personal and professional lives of affected family members in unexpected ways.
MORTH has undertaken several key initiatives towards improving road safety in the last two years. One of the most important decisions in this direction has been to increase the total stretch of National Highways from 96,000 km to 2,00,000 km. With this, the traffic on National Highways will go up to 80 per cent of total traffic from the present 40 per cent. When such a huge proportion of traffic manages to avail of better quality National Highways, road accidents and resultant casualties are bound to come down significantly.
One of the other crucial decisions has been to reduce the threshold for conversion of two lane highways into four lane highways, from 15,000 passenger car units (PCUs) to 10,000 PCUs. Besides, a concentrated effort at addressing the accident-prone ‘black spots’ on national highways has been initiated. The government has devised a comprehensive plan, encapsulating the five Es- education, engineering, enforcement, emergency care and enactment to bring down road accidents significantly in the years to come.