KARACHI, Sept 18: The Road Safety Education Campaign, planned by the city government to create awareness in schoolchildren about road safety, is in doldrums due to the non-availability of funds.

Even posters could not be published by the CDGK’s printing press apparently owing to lack of interest on the part of the concerned officials.

Sources in the city government pointed out that only a paltry sum of of Rs0.3 million had been allocated in the current budget for the campaign as against the estimated expenditure of Rs2.5 million.

The proposal for the campaign had been put forward by the Transport and Communication Department of the city government about a year back. The aim was to educate schoolchildren on precautions while outdoors, especially while crossing roads, to escape any harm from vehicular traffic.

The plan was chalked out in view of the growing number of road accidents involving schoolchildren. Statistics contained in a report prepared by the department show that as many as 600 people are killed in road accidents in the city every year and 26 per cent of the victims are schoolchildren. The report suggests that the reason for most of the road accidents involving pedestrians is lack of awareness about road safety education in the victims, most of them children.

The T&C department tried to launch the campaign for which it intended to get 10,000 large size posters printed. The posters were to contain text about guidelines for children and to be titled ‘Six Guide Rules to cross a road’. The department had planned to affix the posters at prominent places within the vicinity of schools.

Besides, the department intended to get 20,000 leaflets titled ‘Traffic Rules’ printed for distribution among children.

The sources pointed out that the printing of posters and leaflets was still pending at the press.

Over the last many months, several reminders have been sent to the DDO of the printing press but no positive results have emerged as yet, they added.

The sources also observed that the amount allocated for a campaign to cover one million schoolchildren of a city with more than 10 million of population was quite insufficient.

Production of a programme Zara Daikh Kai had also been part of the campaign. The programme was approved by the PTV but could not be aired due to the insufficient funds and non-availability of a sponsoring firm.—PPI