Kochi: The North Paravur municipality with the support of the Kerala Motor Vehicles Department has launched an ambitious programme to make the municipal limits safe for motorists. All those who possess a licence would undergo road safety awareness classes so as to be fully aware of the existing motor vehicle rules and abide by them in the next four months under the novel initiative.

“The programme includes awareness classes by MVD officials among resident associations, schools, business institutions and what not. A majority of the motorists are not aware of the laws in place. We just want to work with the MVD officials to educate each of the citizens, who possess a licence, on  the basic road discipline,” said Municipality chairperson Valsala Prasannakumar.

There are 29 wards in the municipality having an approximate population of 31,000. “Out of this, over 25, 000 people have driving licence and we’ll educate each one of them,” she said.

“We hope to achieve cent per cent awareness literacy by the first week of January when the nation observes the Road Safety Week. We have already started the awareness classes among the 70 resident associations and six higher secondary schools in the municipality,” said Adarshkumar G. Nair, Joint RTO, North Paravur, who is actively involved in the project.

Classes are being organised according to the convenience of the citizens. A single class can accommodate around 250 people and is usually held at weekends in schools or auditoriums.

Nearly 5,000 people get killed in road mishaps in the state every year. Over  half of the  victims are in the age group of 20 to 55, the key wage-earning and child-raising group.