GNDU organized Seminar on Pedestrians and their rights
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in
A special seminar to commemorate and celebrate the birth anniversary of Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji was organised organised by Centre of Sustainable Habitat, Guru Nanak Dev University in collaboration with Guru Ramdas School of Planning, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar and with Punjab Police and Safe Society on theme Pedestrians and their rights.
The Chief Guest, Dr. Sukhchain Singh Gill, IPS, Commissioner of Police, Amritsar chaired the inaugural sessional along with Guest of Honor Prof. SS Behl, Nodal officer RUSA and HOD Architecture Department, of Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. Prof. (Dr.) Ashwani Luthra, Coordinator, Centre of Sustainable Habitat, Dr. Kuldeep Singh, HOD Guru Ramdas School of Planning, Sonam Gupta and Expert speaker Arbab Ahmad, Programme Manager, Safe Punjab Programme were present during the Seminar. The Seminar was attended by the students and faculty members of the university. An interdepartmental poster competition was also held and prizes were distributed to the winners.
Dr. Kiran Sandhu of GRD School of Planning welcomed all the delegates and highlighted the teachings of Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji that also promoted pedestrianisation. Dr. Kuldeep Singh highlighted that it is important to revive walking in cities instead of focusing only on vehicles. Prof. (Dr.) Ashwani Luthra emphasised on the need of micro mobility by promoting walking and cycling as the cities are becoming gas chambers. Dr. Sukhchain Singh Gill deliberated upon the need of scientific and phased development of Amritsar City that would solve the problems of the road users. Further, a clear thought and idea was put forward by Prof. SS Behl, who highlighted the importance of street patterns and their role as a social and aesthetic spaces as users gather, absorb, observe and perceive more as these are important multifunctional spaces and there is need to revive these streets to its original form.
Furthermore, the Expert speaker Arbab Ahmad has presented that there is a need to look into the right to way of pedestrians as in the majority of the accidents they are victims. He highlighted those maximum accidents happen on urban streets and there is a need to reduce the speed to 25 km/h. It is also important to plan infrastructure to reduce pedestrian fatalities. In addition, he highlighted various initiatives of Punjab Police that includes bike policing, school vahan policy, use of modern techniques for enforcement, black spot identification, road safety audits, crash investigations etc. to name a few.
Taking into account the findings of the seminar Dr. Sukhchain Singh Gill assured the august gathering to take necessary actions to better the traffic and road safety condition of the city through proper planning and involving all the major stakeholders.
November 21,2021
