One hundred and forty thousand people die every year on India's roads.
That's over 2,500 people per week.
Most of these deaths
are caused by human error and could have been prevented.
In this challenging environment,
Shell has set up a programme that tries to tackle this problem head-on.
There are so many heavy-vehicle drivers like Ravinder in India.
They spend their lives
travelling hundreds of kilometres every day with little sleep -
a deadly combination.
But Ravinder's story is not unique,
and accidents through fatigue are frequent.
In this challenging environment,
Shell responded by setting up a new programme.
First, driving behaviour was studied across the world
in countries where the rate of accidents was low.
They took this learning and created a plan to improve driving patterns
of Shell India's truck drivers, and Humrahee was born.
I look at road safety
as a matter which can change
the whole scenario of a family.
Today, he goes out to work.
He is the sole breadwinner of the family. He doesn't return home.
So there are so many people in this country who get impacted by it.
The whole family's social structure itself changes.
Humrahee is a Hindi word
which means "travel companion in a long, arduous journey".
It is now an independent accreditation programme
for India's heavy-vehicle drivers.
Humrahee is a comprehensive road-safety programme,
which enables the driver to behave safely on the road.
And the driver also becomes an influencer to other drivers,
to ensure that they also drive safe,
which, in turn, will make our roads safer.
The programme follows multiple steps of modules.
It starts by pre-screening drivers to measure their behaviours and attitudes,
and uses driving simulators to mimic road conditions.
Evaluations,
behavioural profiling and eye tests
are all part of the programme.
Each driver needs to spend a minimum of 30 hours
over a six-month period training.
Three hundred drivers are currently going through Humrahee.
Eighty have graduated.
The difference with Humrahee is that training doesn't stop in the classroom.
The journey is recorded and analysed back at the centre.
This monitoring system
can record drivers' behaviours 1,000 miles away -
their speed, their braking and their pit stops.
My dream will be to have this as a standard for the country.
Our roads are going to be much safer,
we will have less orphaned families,
less widows in this country in this context.
But the programme doesn't just deal with driving.
It also looks into the overall health of the driver,
including things like nutrition and sanitation.
And Humrahee doesn't just affect the lives of the drivers.
It also affects the lives of the families.
Humrahee is an incredible concept,
and I want to congratulate Shell
for developing this concept.
And I wish a number of corporates and other entities will take it up.
The impact has been stupendous.
We see a drastic improvement.
Now our drivers are much safer.
Humrahee has been running for over three years.
Based on statistics collected over almost one year,
Humrahee drivers
were found to be nearly six times safer than non-Humrahee-trained drivers,
continuing Shell's journey to protect India's roads and its people.