NSS and IIT Roorkee successfully celebrate 31st national road safety week

Roorkee: Over 1.51 lakh people lose their lives every year in our country in road accidents, and many are debilitated. Thus, road accidents cause immense economic hardship and emotional trauma of numerous families. In association with the Indian Road Safety Campaign (IRSC) IIT Roorkee chapter, the National Service Scheme (NSS), IIT Roorkee organized multiple events to increase awareness about the road safety during 31st National Road Safety Week which is celebrated from 11th January 2020 till 17th January 2020, on the theme "Bringing Change Through Youth."
 
The week-long campaign started with the “Street play” performed by the NSS (Awareness Cell) volunteers to re-educate and re-remind people about traffic rules. A special event titled, “Tree of Remembrance” was also conducted where motivated volunteers hung posters resembling traffic signals on trees. On the second day, two events, namely, “Rahgiri-Walkathon" and "Pledge for Road Safety," were conducted in which the participation of about 600 people was seen at 7 am. The participants took the pledge in the presence of the honorable director, IIT Roorkee, Prof. Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi, to follow the traffic rules. Following the pledge ceremony, the students marched around the campus, holding posters to increase awareness about road safety.
 
“It is our duty to impress upon the need for road safety amongst the youth and spread awareness about traffic rules. It has been an enriching experience to organize this initiative in partnership with IRSC.” said Prof. Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi, Director IIT Roorkee while addressing the gathering.
 
Adding to the series of successful events, the NSS IIT Roorkee in association with the Civil Engineering Consortium undertook two more events on the day 3 & 4 on the theme road safety. Firstly, a lecture titled "Traffic Sign Study" was delivered by the Deputy Director, IIT Roorkee, Professor Manoranjan Parida. Secondly, a field study was carried out with title “Pothole Study” to provide technical knowledge for a reliable solution to potholes, which was followed by demonstrations around the campus. In continuation, the “First Responder Training Workshop” was organized on the day 5 of the safety week. The training was imparted by Ms. Shruti Adhav, Founder, Value Life Foundation, where she educated the participants on basics of Cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and other first aid procedures.
 
The weeklong campaign came to a fruitful end on Saturday with several road safety events conducted in local schools. To sensitize the school children on road safety, the "Safe India Ideathon” was organized in CBRI Govt. School, Roorkee. Secondly, the event “Parents Report Card” was conducted in Kendriya Vidyalaya-1, Roorkee where students were given a questionnaire asking whether their parents followed the safety instructions or not.
 
This whole campaign was conceptualized collectively by IIT Roorkee team of NSS & IRSC and was implemented under the leadership of Prof. Manoranjan Parida (Deputy Director, IIT Roorkee), Prof. Pranita P. Sarangi (Faculty Advisor, NSS IIT Roorkee) & Singh Rahulkumar Sunil (General Secretary, NSS IIT Roorkee).
 
The safety week is a constant reminder that there is an urgent need to make our roads safer as the loss of lives and limbs cannot be accepted as the price of mobility. There is a need for the society at large to take cognizance of the issue and to join hands to make road safety a social movement. And the work done by NSS IITR in that direction is commendable. NSS-IIT Roorkee believes in the motto, "Not for me, but for the Nation," and this campaign was another step towards the fulfillment of the same.