Around 300 school buses carrying thousands of students hit the State capital roads every morning, but Superintendent of Police (SP) (Traffic) Rajiv Ranjan Singh on Tuesday maintained that they cannot regulate the traffic rush during early hours.
He attributed his helplessness to the crunch of manpower. Though a Ranchi District Transport department official said that around 10,000 students travel in approximately 200 school buses in the city, but a rough estimate said that there will be over 300 buses deployed by various schools.
“We lack traffic police staffs. So it is the responsibility of schools to ensure that their buses are installed with speed governance device. It is not possible for us to look after the traffic round the clock. School buses in metropolitan cities like New Delhi are already equipped with this technique making it easy for the state administration to manage traffic in the early hours of morning,” the traffic SP told The Pioneer.
He added, “If this mechanism is installed bus drivers will be unable to drive above 20 km per hour.”
When asked that despite this crunch how they manage traffic policemen at Morhabadi at the same time when VVIPs, including senior bureaucrats and ministers go for walk he replied, “Only four cops are deployed here in that period. Obviously, these few numbers cannot fulfil traffic management at those junctions wherein cops are missing in the same time.” However, he assured that he will request the state administration to appeal schools for installation of this speed governance device.
Hearing these words, a school principal said, “Installation of such devices after state administration’s instruction is a future plan. As of now, the traffic police can atleast deploy Home Guards on daily wage basis from 5am to 8 am since the duty hours of traffic police begins after 8 am. This way the Home Guards who are not getting enough working assignments within the state can be involved.”
On the other hand, guardians who drop their offsprings every morning till bus stoppages felt the immediate solution to this reckless driving of the school buses. “life of my child is at risk every morning. Not because of his own school bus but due to the school buses whose drivers reach the spot late and drive hurriedly in order to manage the time of reaching the school,” said Maitreyi Roy, a resident of Station Road. A government employee residing in Hinoo said, “My husband drops my daughter in motorcycle to her school at Doranda every morning. But, fast driving of the school buses in these hours in the absence of traffic cops scares him of getting crushed under the bus.” Incidentally, the students also use bikes with high speed for reaching to school in absence of traffic police on the road.