Apart from teaching people the importance of road safety, the campaign has several competitions to bring out the artist in students and local residents
The two-week-long road safety campaign was kicked off with a lot of zest at Mathadi Bhavan in APMC market on January 4. While the focus on the first four days of the event was on imparting road safety tips to motorists and pedestrians, a Modern Band Competition for college students will be held at Dr DY Patil College in Nerul around 4 pm on day five (January 9), when participants will exhibit their skills playing instruments like guitar and keyboard.
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The next day saw participation of women and children in a motorcycle rally. “For the rally in Panvel, students will wear helmets. Women will be a major part of the rally, as they are the oneswho use lighter vehicles like scooties,” said a traffic police official.
Mind it: Banners installed by the traffic police department about the importance of adhering to traffic norms
The following three days, January 11 to 13, will see Navi Mumbaikars flocking to a photo exhibition at Shivaji Park, Vashi. “For the first time, we are allowing participation from students, professionals and general public so that the message of road safety is conveyed to most people,” DCP (Traffic) Vijay Patil said.
While a bicycle rally in Kharghar has been organised on January 11, Navi Mumbaikars would be seen participating in a walkathon on January 12. A flash mob event will be held at Inorbit Mall in Vashi on the same day, wherein kids would be performing to convey the importance of road safety. Road safety programmes will be held at various traffic signals as well.
“The city will celebrate Makar Sankranti, a festival where the people exchange ‘til gud’ and ask each other to be sweet. We will distribute the sweets and ask people to drive safely. We will not charge anyone for the day if found violating any type of road safety rules,” Patil said.
A short film competition for college students has been organised on January 16 at Dr DY Patil auditorium, for which the topic is road safety. The campaign will conclude on January 17 with distribution of prizes to winners of all the competitions, at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium in Belapur.
Counselling sessions for drivers, conductors soon
The Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport (NMMT) body is planning to conduct counselling sessions for its drivers and conductors, to increase their efficiency and ensure their psychological well-being. The counselling sessions will be aimed at helping them fight depression and making them more mentally fit. Medical check-ups will also be conducted as part of the session. The session is likely to begin in the month of January.
In the last few months, the authorities have taken many steps to improve services and made it clear to their staff that misbehaviour with commuters will not be tolerated. Anwar Shaikh, the chairman of the transport committee, has pasted his mobile number on every bus so that commuters as well as staff members can directly contact him in case they have any complaints regarding NMMT services and operations.
Shaikh said that the sessions will be conducted once or twice in a month for drivers and conductors. “For the betterment of the employees and the convenience of the commuters, we have decided to conduct these sessions. However, we are yet to decide upon a schedule and will decide shortly,” said Shaikh.
Commuterspeak
“It is very difficult for drivers to make there way out of traffic jams and for conductors to deal with various kinds of people. Such sessions are very useful and should be conducted for them so that they are not stressed out during the commute,” said Dr Mitali Patel, resident of Nerul.
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