Monitor vehicles’ movement to bring change, say parents

Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, August 6

After a school bus accident at Jagraon cost the life of an eight-year-old boy, Gurman Singh, a student of Class I at a local school, parents have raised concerns about the safety of their children.

Parents openly blamed the authorities for not taking concrete steps to make sure that schools and transporters ferrying schoolchildren in buses should follow the norms of the Safe School Vahan scheme and bus drivers drive in a responsible manner on roads.

“Whenever any accident occurs, the Regional Transport Authority and the traffic police wake up from their deep slumber and start checking buses. The checking goes on for a few days and the situation again remains the same. Serious efforts are needed on the part of the authorities if they are really concerned about the safety of children,” said Amrita Arora whose children studies in a private school located in Shastri Nagar.

Another parent Raman Sharma said his son commutes daily in a school bus and several times, he had complained that the bus driver drives in a rash manner. Following this, he also complained about the driver on the complaint number written on the vehicle but he did not mend his ways.

“Usually when the authorities conduct a checking, they visit schools and check buses but if they seriously want to conduct the inspection, they should monitor school buses plying from pick-up points to drop points. They should follow the vehicles secretly to check whether drivers are driving responsibly. On finding violations, immediate action should be

taken,” said Ramakant whose son commutes in a bus to a private school in Kitchlu Nagar.

Another parent alleged on Tuesday, when he was going to drop his ward to school on a motorcycle, a private school bus driver was found driving rashly. He was literally driving in a zig-zag manner on the PAU road to overtake other vehicles without considering the safety of children in mind.

“A few days ago, when I was returning from school with my son, I also saw an auto-rickshaw overloaded with school students. A girl child was literally hanging on the right side of the crammed vehicle while jostling for space. The driver was driving at a high speed without paying heed to the child. Authorities should monitor such vehicles. I also captured a photo of the violation,” said a city-based parent, who shared the photograph clicked by him with The Tribune team.