Following the guidelines and prescribed norms of the apex court, the District Administration and Regional Transport Authority (RTA) have issued instructions to all the schools in the State capital to adopt safety procedures in school buses plying in the city.
Considering a step ahead, District Administration along with other concerned authorities has decided to install closed circuit cameras (CCTVs), Global Positioning System (GPS) trackers, speed governors of specified standard and breathe analysers to ensure the safety of school students who avail bus facilities.
“As per the State Government notification, all the school buses must have speed governors embedded in it from April 1. However, there are few technical glitches which need attention and transport officials have been instructed to conduct meeting with authorized dealers to address the problems of CCTVs installation and speed governors. Several other decisions were also considered,” said, Ranchi DC, Manoj Kumar.
Highlighting on other safety facets, Kumar added, “All the schools have agreed on GPS trackers to ensure kids safety. Similarly, all the schools have given their consent to keep breathe analyser on campus premises too. Traffic police personnel will also be deployed at major bus routes to ensure kids safety in coming days.”
More than 50 schools are operating in the state capital and most of the day scholar students studying in different schools avail school bus services, as it is both safe and convenient. However, several times it has been scrutinised that most of the school buses plying in different routes have failed to fulfill the set parameters as prescribed under the laws putting students’ safety at stake.
The concept to set up CCTVs, GPS trackers, breath analysers along with speed regulators came as the suggestive measures from the district administration part in the meeting held recently with the RTA officials, school management personnel and respective bus staffs.“As new academic session is likely to kick off from April 1, all the suggestive measures will be implemented in the stimulated time frame of three months. With the aim to establish a cordial relation between the school management and transport personnel and to keep a track on the activities of both children and bus staffs such measures are mandatory to prevent any mishap,” said District Transportation Officer (DTO), Nagendra Paswan.
The breath analyzers concept seems to be new in the city in terms of managing school buses and setting up standardized rules. The Supreme Court too in the bus safety directives clearly mentions, a driver who has been challaned even once for the offence of over speeding, drunken driving and dangerous driving cannot be employed in school bus service.
“Instructions have already been issued. All the school managements have been asked to arrange set of breathe analyzers to check and analyze the health of transport personnel on regular interval. This apart, speed regulators, CCTVs, GPS must be embedded in all the school buses as earliest,” added Paswan.
Nevertheless, all these checking courses have failed immensely to control the unseemly incidents as several accidental cases, both minor and major, are registered every year in the state capital exposing the loopholes in the system at both administration and schools authorities end.