Amid increasing bus accidents, UPSRTC bags safety award
In what may be termed as ironical, the UP State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) has bagged the all-India safety award at a time when the number of bus accidents are on the rise, prompting the authorities to shift gears and try to apply brakes on the disturbing trend.
The state-owned corporation bagged the Ashok Leyland India Bus Award for Excellence in passenger safety at a function in Hyderabad on Saturday evening, the day when its drivers were being administered an oath to drive carefully to avoid accidents. What brought the award to UPSRTC was the fact that its buses were found to have met with the least number of accidents among all state transport undertakings and private bus operators in the last financial year, that is, 2016-17.
“The number of people dying in road accidents involving UPSRTC buses was 425 in 2014-15 which came down to 235 in 2015-16 – a reduction of around 50 per cent. The number went down further to 205 in 2015,” UPSRTC general manager Vineet Seth told HT over phone from Hyderabad.
The drop in the number of accidents was attributed to the corporation’s initiatives in real-time monitoring of movement and behaviour of all its GPS-fitted buses. The UPSRTC has, however, got the safety award at a time when the authorities, including the minister, are deeply concerned over the growing number of accidents during the current financial year. The corporation had to even begin a weeklong refresher course for its 17,000 bus drivers.
During the training that began from Saturday, when the corporation bagged the safety award, the drivers were administered an oath for driving safely, come what may.
“Chahe sadak par chalne wale sabhi log galat chal rahe hon phir bhi main durghatna nahin hone doonga kyoki mere bhi biwibachche hain (Even if all the people on the roads are careless, I will not let accidents happen as I too have a family to look after),” read the text of the oath taken by the drivers.
Earlier, the corporation had also announced cash reward to onboard passengers who click a picture of a driver talking on cellphone while driving.
These desperate moves on the part of the authorities have been prompted by the fact the first quarter (April-June) of the current financial year has seen a sudden spurt in accidents. The UPSRTC buses have met with the worst kind of back-to-back mishaps resulting in a number of deaths in the last three months.
At least two dozen people were charred to death and several others injured when a UPSRTC bus caught fire after colliding with a truck on the national highway in Bareilly last month.
Eight passengers died and 35 others injured when a roadways bus fell into a river in Jaunpur a few weeks ago. Two people, including the bus driver, died and several others injured when an Etah-bound UPSRTC bus rammed into a loaded trolley ahead of it near Aligarh in April.
In another case, as many as four people were killed and 12 others injured after a speeding UPSRTC bus collided head-on with another bus in April. Sources said the growing number of accidents came as a big surprise to the authorities as they had invested a lot in passenger safety during the last three-four years and got positive results.
“The corporation is tracking all its GPS-fitted buses in realtime and any over-speeding, diversion, sudden turn etc. by drivers is caught immediately and a message is sent to them,” they said. “Alerted by the increasing number of accidents, the UPSRTC made a detailed analysis of major bus accidents and found that the drivers were not much at fault,” Seth said.