In a bid to bring down road accident fatalities in Haryana, wearing of helmets while driving a two-wheeler and fastening of seat belts in cars have been made mandatory for all college students in the State and the violators will not be allowed to enter the campus.
The Manohar Lal Khattar Government in the State has decided to make wearing of helmets and seat belts mandatory for college students and a communiqué in this regard has been sent to the principals of all government, government aided private and self-funded colleges for strict compliance.
The communiqué sent by Director General of Higher Education has also asked the principals to ensure that students are being informed about the decision and violations are being dealt with strictly. The principals have been directed to ensure strict vigil to keep a check on violators and those students who would not abide by the rules would not be allowed to enter the campus.
The decision to make wearing of helmets and seat belts mandatory for college students was taken in a review meeting of Road Safety Programme held last month.
Recently, Haryana colleges were also directed to set up road safety clubs with an aim to enable the students to imbibe the importance of practicing safety while driving on the roads.
For this, a road safety nodal officer has to be appointed in all the colleges. Apart from this, road safety institute head or convener, senior faculty member, regional eminent person and senior students would be appointed as members of the road safety clubs, which would carry out road safety measures and drives in these educational institutes throughout the year.
A road safety ambassador would also be appointed in every class in all the colleges.
Notably, around 10,625 accidents were reported in Haryana till November 2017. 4828 fatalities were reported in these accidents.
In a report prepared by the Union Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways, Haryana was among the top 13 states where maximum accidents were reported in the year 2016. As many as 11,234 accidents were reported in Haryana while the number of fatalities stood at 5,024 and injured at 10531 in 2016.
The road accidents account for a large number of deaths and injuries every year in Haryana.
Recently, the State Government had announced that it is considering to make drunken driving, resulting into the death of the victim, a non-bailable offence to keep a check on road accidents by inebriated drivers.