IRTE and Diageo India conducts its forth ‘Road to Safety – Towards Responsible Youth’ School Conclave in partnership with MoRTH

1 Dec 2019 | Press release

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The programme witnessed participation from over 100 school teachers

Chandigarh, December 01, 2019: Diageo India in partnership with Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE) and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), conducted their forth ‘Road to Safety – Towards Responsible Youth’ School Conclave in Chandigarh today. This is the second School Conclave in the state and forth in the country,

 Focusing on a holistic approach to road traffic education, the initiative involves training school teachers to integrate road safety awareness as part of the existing school curriculum. The initiative is part of Diageo India’s “Road to Safety – Towards Responsible Youth” Programme, a unique public private partnership with MoRTH and IRTE to bring formal and structured training programs on road safety for university students and young adults.

 The programme was inaugurated by Guest of Honour- DIG Omveer Singh; Dr. Rohit Baluja, President, IRTE; Dr Madhu Chitkara, Vice Chancellor, Chitkara University; Dr Niyati Chitkara, Principal, Chitkara University and Harinder Pal Singh from Diageo India.

India ranks number one in the number of road accident deaths across the 199 countries reported in the World Road Statistics, 2018 followed by China and US. As per the WHO Global Report on Road Safety 2018, India accounts for almost 11% of the accident related deaths in the World. According to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Chandigarh reported over 316 road fatalities in 2018 as compared to 342 in 2017.  Although the number of road fatalities declined by 8%, the menace still continues to frighten the city. Victims involved in such road mishaps are between the age groups of 15-44 years with speeding, reckless and drunk driving being the top reasons accounting for road traffic accidents and fatalities.

This School Conclave is an initiative to further address the grave issue of road safety by inculcating behavioural change and creating awareness about responsible driving habits among students and teachers. The extensive two-day training on November 29th and 30th, 2019 contained interactive modules for school teachers in responsible driving, advanced teaching methodologies on road safety and role of parents and teachers in influencing children to abide by traffic rules.

Commenting on the initiative, Abanti Sankaranarayanan, Chief Strategy and Corporate Affairs Officer, Diageo India, said, “We are pleased to partner with authorities of Public and Private Schools in Chandigarh along with IRTE as we expand our “Road to Safety” campaign to the schools. India’s future is reliant on our young adults in school and we realise that they are vulnerable to road accidents. Through the School Conclave, we aim to target teachers who will act as a catalyst in helping students become safe road users. We thank the teachers of Chandigarh to support this initiative and believe that this is another step in Diageo India, helping to create a national movement around road safety

Dr. Rohit Baluja, President, Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE) said, “Road traffic violations are increasing in the country leading to a continuous fall in road user culture. Road accident data of 2018 reveals that over 9977 children below the age of 18 were killed in road accidents in India. Awareness amongst the youth about road accidents and its consequences is paramount, and this school conclave programmes conducted for teachers will help them train the children for a better tomorrow towards road safety and responsible driving. The programme of School Conclave initiates the process of training school teachers of a methodology of imparting road safety education through the already existing subjects of the school curriculum. I would like to congratulate the Chandigarh Traffic Police for taking the lead in initiating this programme in Chandigarh and I am grateful to the Principal and authorities of the schools and Diageo India for having supported this initiative.”

Till date, over 350 teachers have been trained through School Conclaves in Chandigarh, Pondicherry and Jaipur. In its fifth year, Diageo India and IRTE have been successfully running their ‘Road to Safety’ initiative to provide capacity building training to traffic police officials and educating commercial drivers such as truckers and bus drivers and university students on the dangers of drinking and driving. Each programme is conducted by an expert panel of faculty of the IRTE. Since 2014, the programme has trained over 5020 police officials and 10,445 other participants which include Navy Officers, Engineers, Transport Officers, Commercial Vehicle Drivers and School Teachers. The training programme have massively taken place in 22 states & Union Territories and 65 cities till date.

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