50% school buses in city unsafe

CHANDIGARH: Around 50 per cent of the school buses in the city have serious safety violations. This has been stated in its inspection report by the Chandigarh Commission for Protection of Child Rights. The commission, which has been appointed as the nodal agency by the Punjab and Haryana High Court to monitor safety in school buses, conducted an inspection of around 600 school buses of the total 800.

Officials of the Chandigarh Commission for Protection of Child Rights check documents of a school bus. A tribune photograph

Aarti Kapur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 14

Around 50 per cent of the school buses in the city have serious safety violations. This has been stated in its inspection report by the Chandigarh Commission for Protection of Child Rights.

The commission, which has been appointed as the nodal agency by the Punjab and Haryana High Court to monitor safety in school buses, conducted an inspection of around 600 school buses of the total 800. Three teams were constituted for the purpose.

In the report, serious violations have been pointed out in 50 per cent of the school buses such as lack of emergency door, no police verification of staff, buses plying without permit and contraceptives in first aid boxes.

Contraceptives were found in the first aid boxes of five school buses during the inspection. The commission summoned the school authorities. While three schools were issued a warning, a fine of Rs 10,000 was imposed by the commission on the remaining two.

The management of the schools and the bus contractors concerned gave an excuse that they were not aware about the contraceptives. All bus drivers were given new first aid boxes in which shopkeepers had added contraceptives since it was mandatory to do so in the case of commercial vehicles, according to the State Transport Authority norms.

In a few school buses, the inspection team found that there was no emergency door. Attendants told them that they had hammers in the bus and in case of an emergency, these could be used to break the windowpanes of the vehicle.

The report mentioned that 12 school buses did not have permits from the local Administration. These buses had a permit from the Amritsar Transport Authority to ply in a 50-km radius, which is not applicable to the city. Besides, there was no police verification of the bus staff. In fact, several drivers did not have a licence of heavy vehicles and also did not fulfil the Class X minimum qualification norm.

Last year, the commission had instructed all schools to install CCTV cameras and the GPS in the buses. The schools were also asked to keep a 30-day recording of the CCTV footage. However, a large number of schools were not keeping the CCTV footage recording.