NORTHERN RAILWAYS DELHI DIVISION LAUNCHES PUBLIC AWARENESS PROGRAM “101 NUKKAD NATAKS”
NR DELHI DIVISION LAUNCHES PUBLIC AWARENESS PROGRAM
“101 NUKKAD NATAKS”
Loss of precious lives at Unmanned Level Crossings (UMLC) is a matter of serious concern for the Indian Railways. Though it is the endeavour of Indian Railways is to minimize train accidents including level crossing gate accidents, even then a large number of casualties take place at level crossing gate accidents.
In total there are about 242 UMLCs on Delhi Division. On 23.10.2012 there was an accident at an UMLC gate where all three adults of a family in a car died in the accident leaving behind a lone child survivor. To avoid such tragedies, it has become important to create awareness amongst road users, as cooperation from road users is seen as a major factor in controlling unmanned level crossing gate accidents.
The Division has taken many steps to make the public aware about the provisions contained in Motor Vehicle Act, 1988 by pasting posters, distributing pamphlets, cinema slides, checks along with Road Transport Authority, Advertisements, Nukkad Nataks, etc. The present endeavour is a large scale attempt to improve public awareness in an entire section at one go and achieve complete eradication.
For the first time in the history of Northern Railway, a professional theatre group has been roped in to educate the public about safety precautions to be adhered to at UMLCs. The scope of their performance would include Nukkad Nataks on stations, nearby villages, Gram Panchayats on this section. This is going to be a pilot project on a 200 Kms stretch and further proliferation on other sections would depend upon the response observed on this section.
Apart from the above, these Nataks are designed to make people aware about other safety hazards like trespassing, roof riding which are seen to result into substantial avoidable fatalities. In the recent past, accidents have occurred as people have been carelessly crossing railway tracks with ear phones plugged in due to which they were unable to anticipate the approaching train/engine..
Sh. Anurag Sachan, Divisional Railway Manager, Northern Railway, New Delhi has said that this campaign was a part of ongoing efforts to create public awareness. He appealed to the people that they must not indulge into dangerous activities such as trespassing over railway tracks, travelling on foot boards, buffers, couplers and roof top of train coaches, cross the UMLCs carelessly and to stay safe and co-operate with Railways.