Bharatpur students risk life on banned ‘jugaads’ to reach school
BHARATPUR: Thousands of school students in the Rajasthan’s Bharatpur put their lives at risk travelling to school on jugaads or assembled vehicles despite a Supreme Court order banning such vehicle across the country in February 2012.
Jugaad, a curious contraption–with a body of a cycle cart, the tyres and engine of a motor cycle.
There are more than 1,400 private-run and state governmentaided schools in the district that use these vehicles to ferry students from their houses to schools and back.
Students travel 1-15 km on these vehicles to reach their schools due to the lack of proper transportation in the rural area. Each jugaad carries 25-30 students.
Most private school owners use these vehicles to transport the students, charging parents anything between ₹5,000-10,000 very year.
Since jugaads are unauthorized, drivers use the link roads on national highways to ply these vehicles with little more than a kerosene or diesel pump engine strapped to a rickety quadricycle that often overturn putting the lives of students at risk.
Vishnu Mittal, a resident of Halena village in Weir subdivision, whose son, Rakesh, a Class 8 student in a private senior secondary school, says that he pays ₹5,000 every year as charge of transport for his son to travel in a jugaad. “I have no other option use a jugaad to send my son to school as there is no other mode of transport to reach the school,” he says.
Prabhat Ranjan from Bijwari village in Weir, says his daughter, Meera , a Class 12 student in a private school in Chhokarbara, goes to school by school jugaad, and pays ₹5,000 every a year to travel a distance of 2 km from the village.
The same situation is seen of Sub-division Bayana’s villages as Dhadhrain, Sora,Pidawali,Bagrain,Khareri,Shahaypur,Mangren, where jugaads are used to ferry students to schools.
Owner of a private senior secondary school in Chhokarbara, Prem Chand Bhaiya says that jugaad is a the cheapest mode of transport that runs 12-15 km on a litre of kerosene and he cannot afford to buy a bus.