The district administration on Thursday came down heavily on errant school buses plying on city roads while violating the set norms. Around 20 school buses were found violating the basic road safety norms during a ‘Surprise Checking Drive’ at Sahjanand Chowk and Birsa Chowk on Thursday afternoon. The drive began as a part of the ‘Road Safety Week’ scheduled from January 11 to 17. Overall, 31 vehicles were checked including autos, bikes and cars.
Buses of schools included St Thomas School, Adarsh Vidya Mandir, Sacred Heart School, Cambridge Public School, Delhi Public School (DPS), St Francis School, Tender Heart School, Manan Vidya and DAV Hehal. A team of Regional Transport Commissioner Rajesh Kumar Barwar, District Transport Officer (DTO) Nagendra Paswan, Traffic Deputy Superintendent of Police RK Choudhary and Enforcement Sub-Inspector Sushil Kumar carried out the inspection.
The faults involved overloading of students, expired or no medicines in the first-aid box, windows without nets, invalid registration certificates or tax papers, drunken bus conductor and unavailability of fire extinguisher.
Students were over-crowded in two buses of St Francis School. In one such bus, students of class eighth and ninth complained that they have to bear the congestion everyday. “In morning, students of the secondary section board the bus, but in afternoon, both primary and secondary students are accommodated together,” said Ritesh Tirkey, a student of St Francis. Also, there was no fire-extinguisher in the bus. lime pouches were found in another bus of this school. “Slang languages are written in Hindi on the back of the seats,” said students.
A bus of DAV Hehal was carrying girl students wherein the conductor was found drunk. Traffic policemen took him to the nearest police station after the Breath Analyzer failed working. The words ‘School Bus’ were nowhere imprinted outside buses of St Thomas School.
A bus of Manan Vidya was a 15-year-old model. Registration certificate was not renewed. Fire Extinguisher was not functioning in any of these buses. Essential medicines were either missing or expired in most of the first-aid kits.
A seizure list was prepared for all these buses. Drivers were instructed to assemble their buses in the police line after dropping the students in their respective stoppages. The DTO said that such drive will continue till January 17. He added that if required, they will also set an inquiry against the concerned School Management Committees.
“We are ready to charge fine or hold inquiry over the guilty school bus members. A compiled report on such inspections will be sent to Transport Secretary KK Soan,” mentioned Paswan. Notably, taking prompt action on this negligence, the awareness programmes on road safety will be held in all the city schools next week.