The Indian Road Safety Campaign and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways launched ‘iSAFE-The Safer India Initiative 2019’ on September 07, 2019, with the support of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, National Crime Records Bureau(MHA) and the United Nations for Training and Research. The campaign is aimed at improving road safety and curbing the loss of lives and limbs. Targeting the Indian youth in the age group of 5 to 29 years especially, the campaign, taking cognisance of nearly 17 people losing their lives every hour in road accidents in India, is aiming to reach out to more and more people in the hope of saving lives from being lost in road accidents. Drawing attention to the fact that despite a young population, India is finding it difficult to utilise their potential to curb mishaps.

Launching a programme to inspire youth to take an active part in the field of road safety, the iSAFE campaign with the theme, ‘The Safer India Challenge’ is seeking the involvement of school and college students to work on road safety, With an objective to educate the youth about road traffic injuries and deaths, which cause immense financial hardship and emotional trauma to victims’ families, iSAFE campaign will see the participation of students throughout the year towards the creation of road safety awareness, and towards making the roads in India safe. An event to this effect was held recently. It was followed by a panel discussion on ‘How can youth aid government in making roads safer’, which witnessed the participation of Anil Srivastava, IAS, Principal Adviser, NITI Aayog, as the chief guest. Abhay Damle, IRS, Joint. Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways was the keynote speaker for the day.