Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday called for making road safety a people’s movement with participation of all stakeholders.
Speaking at the grand final of the National Road Safety Short Film Festival- 2023 held at KIIT University in Bhubaneswar, the chief minister said, “Movies create emotions and help us become more empathetic. Movies allow us to connect to issues we often ignore.”
Stating that every life is precious, he said road safety is a high priority area of the state government. “These short films on road safety are an appropriate medium to engage society to solve one of its most challenging issues of the current times which is road safety,” he added.
Thanking the Commerce & transport department for organising the short film festival, Naveen said the endeavour, which was started last year, has been appreciated by the Supreme Court and adjudged as one of the best practices for road safety awareness.
The chief minister expressed happiness as foreign students from neighbouring Nepal, Bangladesh and Kenya, who are studying in Bhubaneswar, have also sent films for the festival. He congratulated all the winners in the festival and hoped that these films will be screened throughout the state to create awareness about road safety.
Speaking on the occasion, Commerce & Transport Minister Tukuni Sahu said the state government has taken up many innovative initiatives to sensitise people on road safety measures. The overwhelming response from students to send their entries is indicative of a change among the student community.
Usha Padhi, Principal Secretary, Commerce & Transport Department delivered the welcome address.
This is the second edition of the short film festival. Last year, the festival was launched to sensitise the people through short movies.
The festival received 247 short film entries in 7 languages from 8 states. The top 42 films were screened at Berhampur, Sambalpur and Angul with an enthusiastic response from about 5000 people. Other than Odisha, there were entries from Punjab, Maharashtra, Kerala, Assam, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal.
Odia short film “Biswasth Sathi” won the 1st prize and Kerala bagged the 2nd prize in the festival.
