Ranchi police has directed private schools in the State Capital to put a check on the use of private vehicles for ferrying children to school. Moreover, the schools have been warned that they will be answerable and held responsible in case any such private vehicle meets with an accident while shuttling children to or from school, police said on Thursday.
In a letter addressed to the principals of all the leading private schools in the city, Superintendent of Police (Traffic), Harilal Chouhan asked the school administrations to do away with all the private vehicles run by independent agencies or individuals to ferry children to school. “Only authorised vehicles, run by the school or private vehicles owned by parents or guardians should ferry children to school and back. Any private vehicle, which is neither run by the school nor parents should not be allowed to ferry children,” he said on Thursday.
Thousands of parents in Ranchi are risking the safety of their children every day by relying on private auto rickshaws and vans, not authorised to ferry children to school.
While the District Administration here has taken several initiatives in the past to tighten the noose around school bus drivers, the three and four wheelers that function as substitute for school buses hardly ever fell under the district administration’s radar.
Most of these vehicles do not have a commercial registration, say police. Children’s overcrowding these autos and vans is not an alien scene in the State Capital. Barring a few exceptions, a majority of these vehicles carry at least 10 to 15 children at a time, far more than their capacity of carrying only seven passengers. This overcrowding has also led to several accidents in the recent past. The police do not have specific figures on how many school autos and vans met with accidents on the city roads this year, but parents associations claim the number might be well above 50.
“How are the autowallahs and van drivers different from the bus drivers? If the administration has a regulation for the buses, they should also put a check on the vans and autos,” said Ajay Rai, president, Jharkhand Parents’ Association.
Around 250 autos and 300 vans ply on the streets every day only for school duty, said sources from the city’s traffic police.