No lessons learnt from 1997 accident

NEWDELHI: Twenty-one years ago, 28 children were killed after the school bus they were travelling in fell into the Yamuna. The incident then had prompted the Supreme Court to frame guidelines for safe transportation of students in the Capital.

Yet, the city seems to have learnt no lessons from the 1997 accident, with the lives of school children continuing to be at risk on Delhi roads.

Transport officials said that cases of rash driving, overloading, buses without conductors and drivers talking on the phone were common in the city.

Dependra Pathak, special commissioner of police (traffic) said, “Take Thursday’s accident as example, the school van driver had packed 18 children in the vehicle. Initial reports also suggested that he was driving on the wrong side while listening to music on his earphones.”

The school van was a privately-hired vehicle. Pathak added that most parents choose such non-registered modes of transport as they are cheaper than registered school buses and cabs.

Officials said that the government’s transport department at present has only 9,600 school vans registered under it. Apart from this, there are 4,380 registered school buses that ferry students from around 2900 schools across the city. The actual number of such vehicles, however, can be as high as 25,000.

“Majority of school vehicles are not registered with the department, which means the police or the transport department cannot track them. There needs to be an audit of Delhi’s transport infrastructure. Moreover, last year in August, the government had mulled the idea of bringing a policy for safe transportation of kids to and from schools. But, nothing has materialised till now,” said Sewa Ram, who is a road safety expert and a professor at School of Planning and Architecture.

In 2017, the traffic police fined at least 427 school buses and 4,373 vans for various offences such as over speeding and overloading. This year till April 26, police have prosecuted 1,084 vans and 220 school buses.

The transport department, officials said, conducted just one drive in August and September last year where 531 illegal school cabs and 520 illegal school buses were seized. The drive, which should have continued , however, was stopped.

“The problem right now is that there is one set of rules from the CBSE, another from the traffic police and a third e mentioned in the Delhi Motor Vehicles Rules. There is a need to combine all of these rules which can be followed by all enforcement agencies and schools,” said RC Jain, president of Delhi State Public Schools Management Association.