Action against erring school buses set to continue in Gzb
GHAZIABAD: Many erring schools failed to fall in line as the regional transport department has taken action against 68 blacklisted buses that were still ferrying children.
Officials said that they will continue with their ongoing enforcement drive and have also directed the schools to comply with fitness and permit norms of their vehicles.
The enforcement drive against blacklisted school buses started after a 10-year-old boy died after he peeped out of the window and his head hit a pole on April 20 in Modinagar.
The school bus belonging to Dayawati Modi Public School did not have a fitness certificate and was blacklisted by the transport department. The police also lodged an FIR after the incident and arrested the bus driver and conductor.
“We held a meeting with principals, officials, drivers and other staff of about 200 schools on Sunday and they have been clearly told to get their documents completed and comply with the norms at the earliest,” said Arun Kumar, regional transport officer (RTO).
Kumar said that 40 of the 68 erring school buses have been seized and the remaining 28 challaned on account of different violations.
According to the records of the transport department, some of the prominent schools whose
buses have been blacklisted are located in Ahinsa Khand, Meerut Road industrial area, Shakti Khand, Sanjay Nagar, Dasna, Mohan Nagar, Vasundhara, Loni and Modinagar.
The Ghaziabad regional transport office has jurisdiction over four districts — Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar, Hapur and Bulandshahr. According to official estimates, the four districts have about 1,750 blacklisted school buses with about 750 in Ghaziabad district, 700 in Gautam Budh Nagar and 150 each in Hapur and Bulandshahr. The four districts have around 5,400 school buses of which 2,000 are in Gautam Budh Nagar, 1,900 in Ghaziabad, 800 in Bulandshahr and 700 in Hapur.
Following the tragic incident in Modinagar, the officials said that discussions are underway
to install more grilles on windows of school buses or to cover them with wired nets for added safety of the children.
The state administration suspended two additional regional transport officers and one regional transport in-charge on account of alleged laxity in connection with the operation of the school bus involved in the incident. The schools said that last week’s incident is an eyeopener and safety of children is also their prime concern.
“It is important for all schools to follow the norms. The safety of children is our topmost priority and extra efforts should be made to ensure that children travel safely in school buses. However, the fitness tests and other formalities regarding school vehicles got affected in the last couple of years due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” said
Jyoti Gupta, director of Delhi Public School (DPS), Sahibabad.
The members of parents’ association on the other hand said that the enforcement drive lacks sting. “It took the life of a boy to put the entire machinery into action and the transport department officials are waking up only after the incident. The blacklisted buses are still plying and it indicates that officials failed to discharge their routine duties when it comes to taking action against erring school buses,” said Vivek Tyagi, spokesperson of Ghaziabad Parents’ Association.
A fitness certificate is issued to indicate that a vehicle is complying with different norms and procedures and is fit to be driven on the road. It is renewed by the transport department after proper physical and technical inspection of the vehicle. It certifies that the vehicle complies with the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. It also certifies that the vehicle complies with safety aspects.
According to the guidelines for safety of children and fitness of school buses, every school vehicle should have words such as “school bus” and “on school duty” written in the front and rear of the vehicle; every school bus should have names, address, class and blood group of children and route chart; the maximum speed of the school bus should not be more than 40 kilometres per hour (kmph) and the installation of speed governor is mandatory.