The country’s leading premium carmaker, Kia India, has announced the launch of Phase II of its flagship road safety initiative, ‘Buckle Up’, in partnership with The Social Lab Foundation (TSL).
Kia India and TSL signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to expand the initiative’s reach and impact. Phase II was recently inaugurated by Ajay Tamta, minister of state, MoRTH, at Transport Bhawan.
According to a release by the company, during Phase I of the Buckle-Up project (February 2024-February 2026), Kia India partnered with the Gurugram Traffic Police to “address road safety through a dual focus on infrastructure and behavioural awareness”. “The programme facilitated the installation of 750 crash barriers across identified high-risk stretches in Gurugram, strengthening on-ground preventive infrastructure. Complementing these efforts, Kia India conducted structured road safety education programmes across 100 schools, reaching nearly 32,000 students and fostering early awareness among young road users,” the report said.
Phase II (April 2026 – March 2028) expands the initiative’s scale and geographic footprint. “The programme will extend across Delhi–NCR and Uttarakhand, engaging nearly 20,000 students across 100 colleges through advanced driving simulators and structured experiential learning modules,” the release said.
The modules are designed to “to help young road users understand real-world risks and adopt safer driving behaviours”. “These efforts will be supported by integrated awareness campaigns across different platforms of online and on-ground engagement programmes,” said the release.
Commending Kia India’s plan, Tamta said, “It is important to have sustained collaboration between industry and government to reduce road fatalities and advance national road safety awareness efforts.”
“Through this initiative, we are proud to support the government of India’s vision of safer roads and contribute meaningfully towards building a stronger culture of road safety across communities,” said Atul Sood, senior vice-president of sales and marketing.
Apoorva Sharma, executive director of TSL Foundation, said, “With Phase II, we are building on these learnings to scale the programme across new geographies and age groups, further strengthening its impact through structured, experiential road safety interventions.”
