Stressing upon reducing road accidental deaths in the state, Punjab Transport Minister Ajit Singh Kohar on Friday said that the reduction in increasing deaths due to road accidents was the call of the hour.
Presiding over a high level meeting of Punjab State Road Safety Council, Kohar said that majority of accidents involving school buses happened due to unsafe bus body fabrication and failure of education institutions to adopt comprehensive periodical preventive maintenance procedure and due to lack of driving skills among bus drivers.
Punjab Government has initiated an elaborate drive to ensure that road safety norms are being properly implemented, he said. For the purpose, a scheme — Safe School Vahan — has been formulated by Transport Department, under which the School Education Department has been entrusted upon a special responsibility to properly maintain school buses and their use following the norms of Motor Vehicle Act, 1988, and the Supreme Court rulings.
In the meeting, it was decided that every school bus must be equipped with speed governor with its maximum speed limit of 40 km per hour. It was also decided that driver of school bus must possess license of heavy vehicle with five-year experience and school bus be painted in yellow colour. The school buses must also bear name and contact number of school in bold letters, and must also carry first-aid boxes. Directions to curb practice of overloading in buses were also passed. It was also decided that services of a driver, who was challaned twice, would not be hired for school bus. Medical check up of the school bus drivers would also be got done time to time.
To curb accidents at unmanned railway crossings, and to discuss draft of Road Safety Policy and Road Safety Fund, a joint working committee — consisting of Principal Secretary Transport, Principal Secretary PWD, State Transport Commissioner, IG-Traffic and Additional State Transport Commissioner — has been constituted to review progress in this regard.
Kohar said that instructions were also issued to all district transport authorities to implement these decisions. All DTOs would be held responsible for any violations of the road safety norms and departmental action would be initiated against him, he added.