I am sorry, Jisha!

In 2014, I wrote with some pride about a project called "Nirbhaya Keralam, Surakshita Keralam", which was entrusted to me by the new Home Minister of Kerala for the safety of women.  I am sorry for writing that post. I am sorry I felt happy and privileged then that at last I got a posting whereby I can do the work I always wanted to do- help distressed women. I am sorry I spent 72 hours preparing a project which was approved by the State Government, because the project did not materialise. I am sorry that I witnessed the death of this project when it was just 5 months old! I am sorry, dear Jisha, for probably, had this project been alive, you would still be alive too!

On February 2014,  this project was inaugurated with huge pomp in Ernakulam. I was ADGP in Vigilance & anti-corruption Bureau then. I didn't know then that my shift from there a few days after inauguration of Nirbhaya Keralam had anything to do with some raids I conducted and some cases I registered. I thought, foolishly, that my expertise was required to make Nirbhaya Keralam project a success. I took charge as the one woman team of project Nirbhaya and waited for the state police chief or government to post others or give me a room to sit. After much fighting, I got a room in police head quarters and a confidential assistant who could not type a word in English. My numerous visits to the Minister, Home Secretary and DGP made me hopeful, promises were made. I was asked to go ahead with the recruitment, training and crime mapping of vulnerable areas. I was promised reimbursement of expenses.

So, I went ahead and conducted a few public meetings, calling women from all over the district and talking about this amazing project that would make them safe and secure. I intended to train 100 women in each district and make them train the other women. I told them that I will give them identity cards, SIM cards, a badge and an overcoat they should wear while on duty, a kit containing information about law and how to connect with police and social welfare department, money for traveling and victim assistance and a remuneration to boot. All this was in my proposal and a budgetary allocation of 77 lakh was given for Nirbhaya Keralam of police department too.

Ernakulam was selected to start the pilot project and I recruited 99 smart and willing women from the ages between 25 and 55. I started giving them classes on law and unarmed combat and took them to police stations, women's cells, Nirbhaya homes and juvenile homes to familiarise them with women's issues. I prepared a survey questionnaire and taught them how to get information from women in rural areas so that we could find out unreported crimes.

I also contacted C-DAC and requested them to make an application that can be worn by women as a bracelet, pendant on a chain, a brooch or a watch. Dr Ramani of C-DAC was immensely helpful and the team did develop these things. It was successfully demonstrated before selected women and police officers. I planned to develop these and distribute them free of cost to women who needed them. They had in built GPRS/GPS and with the aid of google map, we could trace the location of the registered user of this gadget at the control room or police station. If the wearer of this gadget gives a long press on its button, an alert will go and the nearest patrol could reach the spot in 5 minutes. I preferred  such  an application on ornaments because an attacker usually takes the mobile phone of the victim, but he will ever know that she can get assistance by pressing on her jewellery! If Jisha, who was carrying a pen camera, had such a gadget, she would be still alive!

By the time three months have passed, I was still the only official in the project, money was not coming and I had spent over 60,000 rupees from my pocket! One thing was not lacking though- the number of complaints that were piling up before me. Around 210 persons visited me a week with their problems and I was finding it extremely difficult to help them all. Women thought that I was posted to take care of their personal issues, so a school girl who had crush for some boy, a married woman who had relationship with a married man, a divorcee who wanted back her husband and a woman who feared the neighbour's dog...all poured in seeking my help, while I sat frustrated at the path to doom that Nirbhaya Keralam project was progressing.

Soon, I found that no one was much interested in any issue relating to women in this state. Or they   just didn't care. No support nor funds were there for this project. When the volunteers started to ask me for money and other things, I asked them to wait for some time and reassured that everything will be fine soon. I fought with the poor DGP a couple of times, not realising that he too was helpless in this. He gave me three women police officers to assist me in settling complaints of women who poured in to see me. I wondered what the women's cells, women help desks, women police stations were actually doing if all women from even Kasargod are coming all the way to Trivandrum with hopes that ADGP Nirbhaya ( me) will solve their problems.

Who will not get frustrated and fed up in such a situation?

So when the Transport Minister called me to ask whether I was willing to go as Transport Commissioner, I felt relieved and said yes immediately. At that time, the then  transport commissioner was on leave and the department needed someone. Soon, there was an order posting me as transport commissioner and Previous transport commissioner as ADGP Nirbhaya. Within a week, he got a transfer as  vigilance officer in KSEB and the post become vacant. When another officer returned from central deputation, he was posted there first. But in a week, he too got shifted to the post of ADGP Head quarters. Since July 2014, Nirbhaya project was on a comma, soon, it was buried alive too. Poor, poor Nirbhaya. Poor women Kerala who get raped every often.

Poor Jisha. Wasn't there a Supreme Court guideline that the victim's name should not be revealed? Wasn't that why Jyoti became Nirbhaya? Jisha has a face and name, thanks to the media, she is not the Kuruppampady girl. Govinda chamies are thriving happily. I am sorry, dear Jisha that you were taken away untimely and so cruelly from this world. I only hope that you are happy and loved in your new world. I also hope that such incidents do not happen again in this state which calls itself God's own.

I am truly and genuinely sorry!

Inclusive Road Safety

In January 2016, in 3688 road accidents, 420 people died! This is an all time record of deaths in one month in Kerala. 

Do you think it is war and terrorism that takes the most of human lives? Wrong! It is road accidents! Shocked to see this figure, I wish to reproduce below the Project I recently presented before the King's College London, for which I received the Chevening Fellowship.

INCLUSIVE ROAD SAFETY 

‘Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety’- Shakespeare

Every year globally, nearly 1.35 million people- a majority of them pedestrians and two-wheeler riders- die and around 50 million people suffer injuries which account for an important cause of disability, in road traffic accidents. [1]‘Road accidents are the major cause of death in children below the age of 14 and the top cause of death in people between the age of 15’-29 as reported by the World Report on Child Injury Prevention published by UNICEF in 2011 and the UN Global status report on road safety in 2015.  [2]It isestimated that over 260,000 children die and around 400,000 children get orphaned inroad accidents every year. Even in the USA and European Union countries, where road traffic deaths are not as alarming as in other countries, one out of five child deaths is caused by road accidents. It is again pertinent to note that [3]’90% of accidents occur in South East Asian Countries, Africa and Eastern Mediterranean regions which have less than two-thirds of the world’s vehicle population’. The rapid increase in vehicle growth without improving the road infrastructure or planning for better transportation is one of the reasons for increasing trend in road accident deaths, but the main reason is still attributed to the state’s lack of a sustainable and inclusive road safety policy. Economically, road accidents and deaths are calculated to affect 3% of the global GNP totalling over 500 million dollars according to [4]the annual report of USA National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Road Safety and Annual Report of IRTAD of OECD and Gov. of UK Dept. for Transport.

The UNRSC (United Nations Road Safety Collaboration) set up in 2004 under the World Health Organisation has been involving international organisations, governments, public and private sector entities as well as NGOs in various road safety mechanisms over the years since its existence but the situation has hardly changed even after five years of review of the global scenario of road traffic accidents. In this light, the resolution 64/2551 of the UN Secretary General in 2010 mandated the countries to observe ten years from 2011 to 2020 as the ‘UN Decade of Action’ for road safety, with the goal of stabilizing and reducing road fatalities throughout the world through increased activities to be conducted at regional, national and global levels. The UNRSC in its report in 2012 identified [5]‘the four pillars for evolving road safety strategies which later came to be known as the four Es of road safety- Engineering, Education, Enforcement and Emergency care’. The results of the last five years of this decade of action plan for road safety activities are far disappointing. And now it is time to add one more pillar to it, environment, since if these four pillars rest on the unstable ground, it may well collapse.

[6]‘The United Kingdom has one of the best records of road safety in the world’, according to the policy document on road safety published by the department for transport in the UK in its annual report of 2014. The total length of highways in England, Scotland and Wales is24,076 kilometres and over 85% of all road transport is concentrated on this road, as per the data available in this paper.The roads and bridges are planned, built, maintained and operated with the utmost safety standards in place and the Transport Research Laboratory monitors road engineering through the various road condition indicator codes, tools and surveys.Use of technology-oriented enforcement throughcameras, interceptors and radar surveillance, traffic calming and control systems, pedestrian assistance and crossing systems, separate and dedicated lanes for different types of vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians, structured digital signage and direction boards, mandatory tracking and security system in vehicles (Tachometer, GPS etc.), standardised driving licence testing system,safety standards for vehicles and its passengers, yearly checking of vehicles (MOT), dedicated parking places and the way the enforcement as well as awareness campaigns such as [7]‘Think!’ are outsourced are worth emulating in countries like India where accidents are very high.The public transport system in the UK, especially the cities is one of the best in the world which has reduced the use of private vehicles. The fairly well laid out guidelines and assessments of safety audit system by the [8]‘Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation’, (CIHT) a society for planning, design, construction, maintenance and operation of road transport in the UK is often referred as a reference book for road safety management in other countries. [9]UK is also one of the safest EU countries for road users with road mortality lower than 40 deaths per million inhabitants.

[10]Great Britain also has the best and fastest emergency and trauma-care with most of the hospitals having A&E departments functioning 24/7.The 999 ambulances reach the crash scene within 5 to 10 minutes of receiving intimation. It was however reported in the [11]‘Accident and Emergency Statistics- briefing paper no. 6964 of 17^th July 2015’ that there was 9% increase of attendees in A&E in 2014/15 compared to 2009/10 and on a daily basisemergency admissions were 11,044 compared to 9,397, five years back. It was also found that a majority of attendees at A&E are children below the age of 14.  Till the end of December 2014, there were 35.6 million vehicles registered in the UK, which was 9% higher compared to 2013 according to the Vehicle Licensing Statistics, 2014, Government of UK Department for Transport. [12]The annual report of road casualties in Great Britain on 2014 shows that in 194,477 road accidents, 1775 people of which three-quarters were pedestrians, died and 22,807 were seriously injured in 2014 which was 5.4% higher than in 2013. The traffic accidents and fatalities which have beenreducing up to 2013 since 1997showed an increase of 5 and 4% respectively in 2014, despite all this.

In Indiathere are no uniform road safety policies or standard procedures for traffic control. Imported and costly vehicles co-exist with stray animals, pedestrians, bullock carts and non-motorised transport on the roads where footpaths, parking areas, places of worshipand market places merge with roads. Consequently, traffic is in total chaos. [13]In 2004, the total number of registered automobiles was around 72 million but it grew to 189 million in 2014, more than double in ten years as revealed in the data files of the Central Transport Department.This is almost five times higher than the total vehicle population in the UK. The National and State highways in India is the second largest in the world with 3.3 million km which is 200 times more than in the UK. But the roads and traffic management systems have not changed much in these ten years leading to erratic driving patterns and heavy congestions on the roads. On an average, nearly 450,000 serious road accidents occur a year in India claiming around 170,000 lives and injuring over 480,000 people. It is estimated that daily around 16 children lose their lives on the roads.  [14]In 2014, according to official statistics of the National Highway Authority of India,there were 141,526 deaths due to road accidents compared to 137,423 in 2013, which showed an increase of 2.9%.

A comparative figure of Road Accidents and deaths from 2012 to 2014 in the 10 states in India where the highest number of accidents were reported for the last three years since 2012 is given below.

STATES	NUMBER OF ROAD ACCIDENTS			NUMBER OF FATALITIES
	2012	2013	2014	2012	2013	2014
Tamil Nadu	67757	66220	67232	15638	15645	15776
Maharashtra	45247	63019	61627	13936	13999	13903
Karnataka	44448	46250	43649	9448	10046	10444
Andhra Pradesh	44165	45524	45482	14966	14946	15165
Uttar Pradesh	24478	30615	31034	15109	16004	16287
Rajasthan	22969	23592	24628	9526	9724	10289
Kerala	36174	35215	34282	4286	4258	4049
West Bengal	15608	12414	12865	6222	6504	5927
Chhattisgarh	13511	13657	13831	3167	3477	4022
Delhi	6937	7566	8623	1866	1870	1871

Source-[15] Report on accidents and suicides dated 8.07.2015 of National Crime Records Bureau, Ministry of Home affairs

         

          Kerala is the only state where there was a decrease in the number of accident cases reported as well as deaths due to road crashes from 2012 to 2013 and 2014. Since 2007, road accidents and fatalities were increasing by 3 to 5% every year and the number of vehicles has increased by over 10%.[16]Though small in area and size, the total number of registered vehicles in this state, as on March 2015 was 9,648,320 which are more than double the number of households in the state. Around 66% of the registered vehicles are two-wheelers and three-wheelers. Considering the total length of all the roads in the state, there are 60 vehicles plying in every kilometre. Still in 2014 compared to 2013, 209 less number of fatalities and 933 less number of accidents have occurred although as per the sheer number of accidents reported, Kerala can be ranked in the 5^th position among the states having the highest number of traffic accidents a year.  West Bengal and Maharashtra show fluctuating trends but in all other states road accidents and fatalities increase as years go by. Kerala is the third mostdensely populated state in the country with 33 million inhabitants and 850 people per square kilometre. Being a highly literate and litigant State, all road accidents, however minor, gets reported to the police and FIRs (First Information Report) are generated, the documents of which are requiredfor claiming insurance and damages from the Motor Vehicles Claims Tribunal.

          Kerala is the only state in India having a Road Safety Authority in existence since 2007. [17]The KRSA Act 2007, passed by the Government in 2008 is vested with powers toformulate policies and schemes, to allot funds to the various stake-holding departments to promote road safety and advise the government on various road safety measures.The KRSA has also powers to control and direct departments such as Health, Education, Police, Transport, Public Works, Roads and Bridges and National Highways in their road safety activities. The Minister Transport is chairman of KRSA and Minister Public Works is vice- Chairman. The Commissioner, Transport is the CEO and senior officers of the above departments are members. All these departments have road safety cells and KRSA holds meeting every month to review accidents and suggest improvements to be carried out by each department to prevent further accidents.  [18]A study was conducted by this authority through the road safety research organisation, NATPAC (National transportation, planning & research centre) to formulate a road safety action plan in 2012. This report stressed the need for strengthening enforcement and creating awareness among the public against rash and negligent driving which was the major cause of road accidents and deaths. The report further recommended that while engineering, enforcement and emergency care are duties primarily vested with government agencies, education was one area where the cooperation from the otherwise silent public could be involved in the department’s efforts to save the lives of people, especially children on the roads. Hence, the KRSA and Transport Department decided to make a paradigm shift in its policies and include the public in strengthening road safety in the state.

PROJECT THIRD EYE

          [19]Article 51 (A) of the Constitution of India outlines the fundamental duties of Indian citizens, one of them being ‘the duty to abjure violence and safeguard public property’. [20]The Indian Penal Code and the [21]Criminal Procedure Code also make it mandatory for every citizen to ‘report a crime before the lawful authority for taking further action according to law’ and failure to do so may be construed as abetting the crime. [22]The Central and the State Motor Vehicle Act and rules likewise exhort the public to report cases of violations of traffic rules, act as ‘good Samaritans’ to provide assistance to victims and intimate the hospital and authorities about road accidents.

          ‘Project third eye’ was envisaged to involve the silent masses to take proactive steps in helping reduce road accidents and report offences which they see to the concerned authority. In this state, enforcement was weak due to acute shortage of officers and vehicles as well as finances and most of the commuters violated rather than obeyed the rules. Helmetless riding, non-wearing of the seatbelt, talking on cell phones while driving, drunken driving and driving under the influence of narcotic substances, traffic signal lights violations, not stopping before zebra lines, left side overtaking, road rages as well as parking on non-parking areas were rampant and went undetected.

          Project Third Eye proposed a bottom up approach for a policy implementation on road safety and to use the social media and digital networking technology in promoting safe driving habits and to enforce the rules through participative policing methods. The transport department invited the public to be ‘the third eye’ (first eye being Law and the second eye, the Government/enforcement) and provide information, feedback and comments on road safety activities. The department gave wide media/press publicity to this project exhorting the public to click pictures of traffic violations on their phones or other devices and send them on ‘WhatsApp’ or Facebook page/website to the Motor Vehicle Department. A text message and email wouldbe sent to the owner of the vehicle intimating them of the rule violation and directing them to remit the required fines within a fortnight. The project proposed to reward the informers by giving them free trauma care training, priority treatment at all offices of transport and motor vehicle department and also proposed to honour such people who have actively cooperated in reducing traffic offences or helped victims of road accidents in public functions in order to encourage others to do the same.  

          Operation Third Eye was launched on trial basis in mid-2013. [23]On an average, 3500 pictures and videos were received from the public per day from its inception till the year-end. The revenue to the government as fines collected as compounding fee of traffic offences showed an increase of 38% in 2013. By March 2014, the number of pictures received per day from the public rose to more than 5000 per day and the department had to hire three data entry operators to clear the pending work of sending electronic tickets/memos for traffic violations. Complaints against driving schools, unfair practices or corruption in driving licence tests or vehicle tests and complaints against enforcers also started to pour in.  On each of these, the department sent replies acknowledging receipt of the pictures/suggestions and gave them a reference number in case they needed to follow up the matter. A database of informers kept tag of people who frequently co-operated with the department for rewarding them.

          By January 2015, it was clear from the data that in 2014, there was a noted decrease in the number of road accidents and fatalities. The fines and compounding fees collected in 2014 was Rs 1.2 billion which was more than double the amount collected in 2013 and this was possible only due to the active involvement of the public.

INCLUSIVITY- THE WAY FORWARD TO ROAD SAFETY?       

          There are many actors in the road safety sector. Government officers at the Centre and States, manufacturers and engineers of automobiles, vehicle dealers, oil companies, public works department, national highwaysdepartment and its officers, public sector undertakings such as roads and bridges development corporation, construction corporation, urban planning organisations, officials at the city corporations, municipalities and villages, town planners, police and enforcement officers, transport and traffic management officers, public transport systems and its employees, drivers and passengers, testing centres, driving schools, licensing centres, check posts and toll booths, pollution testing centres, meteorology department, NGOs, research and development teams, officers of various departments such as health and education and finally cyclists and pedestrians are some of them. To achieve the desired outcome, all have their specific roles to play. Most of the time, while government departments, officers and vehicle manufacturers decide and implement major policies, the road users and the silent masses are forced to abide by them. Their points of view are often unheard. The transport system and the roads belong to the taxpayers and the lead Ministry or agency should include them while taking major decisions in improving road safety; it is ultimately for them that safety policies should exist.

          [24]The Ministry of Road Transport and highways of India came out with a new draft bill titled the Road Transport and Safety Bill in 2014 with the aim to reduce road accidents and fatalities by 50% in 2020. This bill proposed to unify all rules and procedures, centrally monitor all vehicles and driving licences and codify all data relating to transport and vehicles to a central system and control. It further proposed to drastically enhance fines of traffic rule violations and include penalty points community service up to 15 days as punishments. The original bill went through four revisions and the new version of the bill of 2015 envisages a framework for safety and ‘seamless development of a secure, efficient, cost-effective and inclusive transport system’ in the country. The new bill proposes establishing authorities for control and coordination of transport and road safety, but is still silent about inclusive transport or safety. So far, the bill has not even been introduced in Parliament despite its many revisions and meetings of the Central Minister with State Ministers. It is expected that once it becomes an Act, concrete steps for including all the main actors in road safety goals and policies will be laid out, but immediate actionon the following points need to be taken by the authorities concerned for reducing road accidents.

1.   Government and other agencies should realise that transport means not only the roads and the motorised sector but also the non-motorised sector such as cycles, hand or animal pulled vehicles and pedestrians- women, children, disabled and the poor. While devising policies, their special needs and inputsshould be studied and changes should be made with a view to providing safe and secure facilities.

2.   Government spendsheavilyfor conferences, educational programmes and meetings for road safety but fail toharness public ideas to develop sustainable goals (SDGs) in road safety. Funds should be made available for creating and disseminating awareness to the people on traffic and public transport system or outsource it effectively. Making available free and user-friendly computer/mobile applications on traffic, transport and road safety, having transparency in all policy decisions, inviting public participation before making substantial changes and providing a common platform for formulating a future path to road safety are some ways by which money can be fruitfully spent by the government.

3.   It is human nature to resist policy decisions taken unilaterally. If the civil society thinks that road safety is a matter of concern only with the government, they will continue to break rulesaccording to their convenience while no one is watching. Public resentment to authoritarian road safety measures is evident when they are more willing to pay the penalty rather than obey the rules. Hence, an environment of connecting with the publicand ensuring respect for law will have to be created.

4.   Technology, presently used for strict enforcement should be extended to allowease of understanding and following of procedures for the public. Rules and regulations as well as penalty for violating them should be continuously brought before public attention and thrust should be given to prevent violations than to penalise them. Surveys, feedback and inputs on improvements needed in technology to enhanceroad safetyand how best to prevent traffic offences and road ragescould be called for. Digitizingdata of all the roads, vehicles, users of roads, the behaviour of drivers and other stakeholders at the national level for analytical purposes should be implemented forease in assessment of various issues and for future improvementin road safety.

5.   Social media is a good space for inclusive road safety activities. The Facebook page of Kerala Motor Vehicles Department has 143,000 friends as of now and gets around 55,000 posts a week from the public. This department has registered online charitable organisations called TRUST (TRaUma care System of Travancore) and TRACK (TRAuma care, Kerala) which formally train the public on first aid and trauma care on every Saturday at reputedhospitals. Over 46,000 persons are so far trained on trauma care. The trained persons are given ID cards so that they can effectively intervene if an accident occurs in their locality. SMILE (Seamless Medical Intervention In Life-saving and Emergency care) is another organisation started by the police in co-operation with the Medical College Hospitals in Kerala for imparting trauma-care training to traffic police officers.Another initiative by the transport department on inclusivity in road safety was the hackathon organised for the public in August 2014. The World Bank, in association with AXA, G-tech and Angel hack, USA sponsored for hosting Asia’s first ever ‘road safety hackathon’ in Kerala in which 308 students and technocrats participated. This event generated novel ideas on road safety technology.

          If we could save the lives of 237 people in 18 months through a small experiment in one tiny state, we can save thousands of lives in the country if similar inclusive policies are taken up by the department/Government. It is estimated by the UN that ‘by 2030, road accidents will become a leading cause of death in the world unless drastic action is taken to change the trend’. At present, the major cause of death in humans is old age and sickness, but road accidents will become the number one cause in 15 years unless we do something substantial in this field.  The future path to road safety is clear- it is the path of inclusive road safety.

"Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success”- Henry Ford