Wearing Helmet Made Compulsory for Students in Aurangabad

After a few fatal incidents that involved deaths of youngsters in the city recently, different constituent educational institutes at the Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT) have made wearing helmets compulsory from the last two months for their students and staff members.

Santosh Bhosle, principal of MIT, told TOI on Saturday that different MIT institutions have a cumulative strength of 7,000 students and over 500 staffers, who are not allowed to enter the campus if found without helmets.

"Before making helmets mandatory, we created awareness among our students about the importance of wearing headgears by displaying posters and hoardings at parking lots. Some of our students also prepared short films depicting life-saving benefits of wearing helmets. After carrying out these awareness measures on a sustained basis, we began making helmets compulsory. Moreover, wearing seat belts is also being made compulsory for those driving four-wheelers," he said.

The civil engineering students' association of MIT also held demonstrations and road shows on and outside the campus to spread awareness about road safety practices.

As MIT made wearing helmet a rule to ensure safety other institutes also followed like

Mahatma Gandhi Mission (MGM) College

Rekha Shelke, principal of MGM College of Journalism and Mass Communication, said the institute's top brass has recently issued a special circular to make wearing of the protective headgear compulsory. "Different MGM institutions have a strength of over 8,000 students. All of them have been appealed to wear helmets while riding bikes for personal safety. We can observe that road accidents largely involve youths. Head injuries are often the cause of death. By wearing helmets, such unfortunate incidents can be definitely curbed," she said.

During the beginning of this year's road safety fortnight, Aurangabad police commissioner Amitesh Kumar held a meeting with the heads of different educational institutions, where he stressed that the initiative to make helmets compulsory would be more effective if colleges and coaching classes take the issue seriously.

"If educational institutions gradually disallow students without helmets from entering the campus, they will eventually realise the importance of wearing the safety gear," he said.

To make the ‘helmet rule’ a permanent thing, whoever disobeys the rule will have to pay fine.