India exploring MoU with South Korea for Road Information System: Nitin Gadkari

Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Shipping, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Nitin Gadkari has said that India is exploring an agreement with South Korea for introduction of Highways Information System in the country. This would be developed on lines of the system run by the Express Highways Information Corporation of South Korea, with integrated monitoring of a highway at a centralised control room.

Inaugurating the 29th National Road Safety Week in New Delhi’s Vigyan Bhavan, the minister spelt out the ministry’s priorities in ensuring safety of road users in the country. He informed that he has fixed a target of bringing down the number of road fatalities to half from the around 1.5 lakh accidental deaths reported when he took over. Gadkari said, though progress has been achieved in this respect, he is still not satisfied and aspires to keep working in this direction.

Outlining the initiatives and steps taken to improve vehicle safety and overall road safety, the minister said his ministry has adopted the 4E principles of Education, Enforcement, Engineering and Emergency care to address the problem of road safety.

Gadkari also released a paper on road safety by Indian Road Safety Campaign. IRSC is a youth led national mission promoting road safety, led by students and alumni of IIT Delhi. It is currently working on creating awareness on road safety, developing technologies, simplifying laws and improving the post-accident emergency care system. IRSC organises an annual road safety championship called as the Safer India Challenge in collaboration with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and various state polices involving the youth to come up with innovations in this area.