STOCKHOLM: More cities from Maharashtra will get assistance from Global corporate charity, Bloomberg Philanthropies, to make their roads safer while it will continue to provide support for similar activities in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
“As a part of expansion of our activities in India, we will extend the support to some of the cities in Maharashtra to address road safety issues. Three cities from India are already being covered. Our efforts involving government agencies and other organisations have helped reduce fatalities in Mumbai. We will soon identify the cities in Maharashtra,” Kelly Larson, director Bloomberg Philanthropies told TOI.
The global charity organisation on Tuesday announced doubling of its support for global road safety by committing another $240 million (Rs 1,680 crore) from in the next five years to save six lakh more lives and prevent up to 2.2 crore injuries in low and middle income countries around the world. Larson said now the road safety initiatives by her organisation will be extended to 15 countries and 30 cities from the current coverage of 10 countries and 12 cities including three from India.
The announcement comes just a day before global leaders meet in Stockholm to chart the roadmap to reduce road fatalities by 50% in the next years. “It’s a big challenge for us to reduce our number of road fatalities. We need focus more on our road engineering and enforcement of traffic laws to bring any change,” Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari, who is representing India at the global summit said.
“The six-year reinvestment in the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety is expected to double its impact to date. Since 2007, the initiative has saved an estimated 312,000 lives and prevented up to 11.5 million injuries. The reinvestment also includes a new awards competition to shine a light on low- and middle-income countries that have made exemplary progress in road safety,” an official statement from Bloomberg Philanthropies said.
Source: TOI
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