Seriously taking up the issue of school buses across Punjab flouting the Supreme Court guidelines and endangering lives of innocent children, the State Child Rights Protection Commission on Thursday directed the District Transport Officers (DTOs) to ensure road worthiness of school buses.
Issuing directives to all DTOs to strictly ensure compliance of the Apex Court’s guidelines for safety of children in school buses, Commission chairman Sukesh Kalia in Full Commission meeting observed that it was matter of great regret that DTOs were not seriously checking school buses.
The Commission observed that in most of the accidents involving school buses it was found that either the school buses were not roadworthy or drivers were untrained, without license or not according to the guidelines of Supreme Court.
In a detailed directive to the DTOs, the Commission has asked them to ensure that all school bus drivers must have valid driving license for driving the particular category of bus and they should fulfill all conditions laid down by the Supreme Court in that regard.
The Commission has also directed that there should be a qualified attendant from starting point of journey to the end point. It would be mandatory for the attendants to escort the children and hand them over to the parents at every point, said Kalia.