Tamil Nadu Minister V.Senthil Balaji honoured the winners of UYIR Road Safety Hackathon 2025 on Sunday at an award ceremony held at Sri Krishna College of Engineering & Technology.

UYIR - an NGO working in the field of Road Safety in Coimbatore to make the city accident-free announced a national Level Hackathon for Students and Professionals in association with Coimbatore District Administration and Coimbatore City Police in December 2024.

The objective behind the hackathon is to generate innovative solutions to make Coimbatore's road a lot safer. The problem statements were based on factors affecting road safety in Coimbatore. While all ideas will go into an idea-bank, the best ideas will be applied in the city roads. 

At the award ceremony, S.Malarvizhi, Chairperson of Sri Krishna Institutions, and the  Official in-charge of this hackathon, conveyed that the competition received 3263 project submissions - (3196 from students and 67 from professionals) from Kanya Kumari to Kashmir. 

It was evaluated by a panel of jury that included Manuneethi, Divisional Engineer- Road Safety, Coimbatore - Tamil Nadu Highways Department. During the 3rd round of evaluation, 144 projects made it to the final. All evaluations were evaluated in the most professional and transparent way. 

At the ceremony Team Next Turners secured the first prize in the Professional category, while Team Surveil Safe (St.Joseph's Institute of Technology, Chennai) won first prize in the Student category. They each received Rs.1 lakh cash prize.

Addressing the gathering, Minister Senthil Balaji commended UYIR Trust's efforts in working towards a "Zero Road Accident" Coimbatore. He congratulated the trustees and members of UYIR for their dedication to road safety.

He stated that UYIR’s initiative, combined with the collective efforts of the government, the organization, and the public, would ultimately lead to Coimbatore becoming an accident-free city. 

He also highlighted the government's commitment to improving road infrastructure, noting that 860 km of roads in Coimbatore Corporation had been newly laid over the past 3.5 years at a cost of over Rs.400+ crore. An additional Rs.200 crore had been sanctioned for further improvements, with projects worth Rs.100 crore already in progress. 

He assured his full support for these initiatives and pledged to bring them to the attention of the Chief Minister.