In protest against the overloading check drive started by traffic police and transport department, school van operators in the city have announced to go on indefinite strike from Friday.
Under the banner of School Vahan Sangh, the operators agitated in front and submitted a memorandum to East Singhbhum Deputy Commissioner Amitabh Kaushal apprising him about the problems due to administration crackdown on overloading.
Over 2,000 auto-rickshaws and vans carrying school children in the city went on strike. The drivers demanded the district administration to stop the drive against overloading keeping in view of the cost factor involved in operating the business.
The drive against overloading of school children in auto-rickshaws and vans began following the instruction of East Singhbhum Deputy Commissioner, Amitabh Kaushal on June 16. Ever since the drive was launched, the district transport office and traffic police have confiscated and penalised as many as 70 vehicles by conducting surprise raids at various points. Over `1.2 lakh penalty has been paid by the van operators.
District Transport officer, Sanjay Kujur and deputy superintendent of police (Traffic) Vivekanand Thakur are jointly conducting the drive which is aimed at not only to curb the over-loading, but also to check the fitness of the vehicles, driving license and insurance papers of the pool car operators.
The DTO said despite the ongoing strike, the administration has on Friday seized 12 vehicles — one van and 11 auto-rickshaws and has slapped a total penalty of `24,000 on the operators.
Santosh Prasad, a member of the drivers association said that they cannot make the school children to reach their school at their cost. “ We will have to charge `1,500 per student per month instead of charging `500. The parents will also not be ready to pay so much money,” he said.
According to officials of transport department in order to garner more returns the van operators take in large number of children opposite to the capacity of the vans. This may result to a major accident any time. This is the prime reason they have acted against them.
“We demand that the administration should call a meeting and settle a fare for the school vans. The administration should also release those vans caught in the raid on Thursday and Friday. The traffic police is charging exorbitant amount as fines which is not possible for us to pay. Till the issue is resolved we would not operate our vehicles for school duty,” said another operator.