IIT Roorkee organizes fourth road safety auditors certification course

NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee) organized the fourth programme on Road Safety Audit from May 30, 2022 to June 13, 2022, in association with Indian Roads Congress (IRC) and the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH). The 15-days training programme is a part of the road safety initiative taken up by the government to have well-trained road safety auditors in the country.

The inaugural event and valedictory session were held at the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Roorkee on May 30 and June 13, respectively.

According to the Road Accident Statistics published by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), road accidents claimed more than 130,000 lives in India during the year 2020.

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“While the major contributors of road traffic crashes can be primarily due to many reasons including driver’s error, over-speeding, drinking and driving, and the negligence of other drivers; but a significant proportion of road accidents may occur as the result of poorly designed roads. To eliminate such road crashes, one of the most effective methods is to audit a road project, right from its design stage till its opening to the traffic,” said an official statement from IIT Roorkee.

Road safety audit

The course curriculum for the programme included an extensive 7-days lecture sessions delivered by several academicians, consultants, and practitioners like from SPA Delhi, CSIR-CRRI, IIT Roorkee, ICT New Delhi, iRAP, RITES Ltd., SaveLife Foundation and Punjab Police, etc. It was then followed by physical site visits near Roorkee city and evaluation, examination of the participants.

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While considering the earlier road safety courses that were organized by IIT Roorkee in the year 2021, Professor Manoranjan Parida, Deputy Director, IIT Roorkee, said, “The need of having more such programs for creating road safety auditors in joint association with IRC and MoRTH in this course will further escalate the participation in the next course and we shall reach bigger heights and make our roads safer.”