Lagatar24 Desk
Ranchi, April 23: With a school bus in Lalpur catching fire on its own after dropping children on Wednesday, the district transport officer (DTO) investigated a total of 48 buses recently. Of these, 23 were found to not meet the standards. Along with this, another 31 buses were checked of which more than half did not have the proper certificates or could not be cleared because they did not meet the required qualifications.
The DTO had then warned private schools to not use buses that were missing certificates and could not be deemed fit, keeping in mind the safety of school children. Despite this, several schools don’t seem to have paid heed to this warning and continue to use all buses. Meanwhile, the school administrations of several schools have claimed that without proper certificates, buses are not allowed to be operated.
Notably, more than 700 school buses are run all over the city by different schools. Some of these buses are owned by the schools while others are rented out from transport companies. About 500 buses are those of these private operators.
Meanwhile, schools like Delhi Public School, have claimed that they are yet to receive any kind of notification for checking in this regard. However, transport in-charge Sushil at DPS claims, “All our buses are in top notch condition. We regularly get our buses checked and tested and have up to date certificates for our buses.”
The Transport in-charge at Sapphire International School, on the other hand, has claimed, “All our buses were checked and passed. Just one of our buses had a problem, wherein a newly hired Khalasi did not remember to show the DTO officials our first aid kit in the bus.”
A transport department official said, “As per rules, for a bus to be considered safe, certain rules need to be taken care of. These include the colour of the school bus should be yellow and ‘school bus’ should be written or painted on it. Along with this, the name and address of the school should be written on the bus, while also displaying the owner’s name and phone number.”
“School buses also need to have first aid kits, fire extinguishers and tool kits on them. The buses should also have grills on all windows and it should be made sure that the emergency door is in no way jammed,” he added.
Furthermore, he said, “Along with a compulsory dress code for Driver and Khalasi, buses should also carry all the documents with them, have seat belts for safety, mandatory speed governance and the seats on these buses should be comfortable enough for children.”
A transport official has said, “We checked several school buses, several did not have proper documents or had issues of some sort. For instance, the school bus of Vidya Vikas Public School did not have grills on the windows. This is a serious issue, as a few years back when a child was looking out a similar window near Karamtoli Chowk, he was hit by a truck and passed away.”
In this regard, the principal of Vidya Vikas Public School Manisha Tiwari said, “We have hired buses since the private operator that would generally provide us with buses had an accident. In such a situation, a private bus has been hired immediately. This is the reason why the colour of the bus isn’t yellow. This will be changed after May 9.”
When the Lagatar24.com correspondent tried contacting her for a comment regarding the missing grills on the window, she had no comments.
When questioned about the missing papers, several bus operators have said that due to Corona, road tax for two years was to be waived; however, the Transport Department did not waive the tax. These bus owners claim that till the road tax is paid, the process of filing for required papers is not possible. They have said that a fitness certificate is issued only after payment of tax.
Meanwhile, over this comment of the bus operators, DTO Praveen Kumar Prakash said, “The Supreme Court has ordered to make sure of the safety of the children traveling in school buses. Messing with the safety standards in buses will not be tolerated under the guise of a tax waiver. If any disturbance is found in the investigation, action will be taken against the bus operators. Now buses will be checked regularly. If mistakes are found, action will be taken.”