Ensure school buses are safe: Activists to operators…..Puja Pednekar & Akshay Deshmane
Now that school bus operators have a dedicated committee to address their concerns, it is their responsibility to ensure that their vehicles are upgraded as per the new safety norms within 10 days, demand activists and parents.
On Monday, after the official launch of the Road Safety Campaign, principal secretary (transport) SK Sharma held a special meeting with school bus operators and decided to set up a technical committee to look into their grievances.
The operators were also given 10 days to ensure their vehicles adhere to the safety norms under the school bus policy.
The operators should stress on the safety of schoolchildren. There can be no excuse for not following the norms now, said Indrani Malkani, an activist.
Malkani was on the state-appointed committee formed to draft the school bus policy for Maharashtra.
The school bus policy, which is largely based on Malkanis Model school bus policy, was implemented in March 2011.
The policy norms include that school buses must have a first-aid kit, fire extinguisher, wide aisle, operational emergency exits and three horizontal rods spaced 5m from each other across all windows.
Dadar resident Raju Tirmalle, whose Class 7 son travels by school bus every day, said: “We do not mind paying the exorbitant fees charged by bus operators. But, even after charging such hefty fees, they are not willing to stick to the safety norms. The bus charges in a few schools are equal to the school tuition fees.”
Jayant Jain, president of the NGO Forum for Fairness in Education, an NGO, lambasted school bus operators for “holding schoolchildren and their parents to ransom for baseless demands.”
But, a school bus operator from the western suburbs told DNA on the condition of anonymity: “It is not fair to say that all operators have not implemented safety norms. How can we not be concerned about children’s safety? Our entire business depends on them. Any operator with a bad safety record will not find business.”
Anil Garg, president of the School Bus Operators’ Association, was unavailable for comment.