State to have ‘model’ school bus plan soon

Transport officials, along with the education department and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, will now formulate guidelines for the ‘model’ school bus, or any other private vehicle that ferries children. Following opposition to an earlier plan, the transport commissioner will issue new guidelines on the matter. This move was initiated after a minibus, carrying school students, caught fire in Panvel on Thursday.

In January 2008, after an accident involving students of Millat School in Jogeshwari, where six students were charred to death after the van in which they were travelling to school caught fire, the transport commissioner and several experts came together to develop a framework for the model school bus. A committee was set up in July 2008, chaired by transport commissioner Deepak Kapoor. The committee was ready with the guidelines, but it was not given final approval.

“Delegations of parents from Dadar, Thane and Kandivli approached me saying the proposition would be expensive. Considering the diverse nature of the population, it was difficult to formulate a standard set of guidelines for all. Schools in south Mumbai preferred the idea, but I also had to consider schools from the other areas,” Kapoor said.

He added that parents, however, will continue to send students in private vehicles as they are cheaper. “We have to issue guidelines for all school buses, including private vehicles. In March, we issued guidelines with the help of the MMRDA for all vehicles, but these rules are only followed by traffic officials. We need to ensure that schools know about these guidelines, and update them by taking suggestions from parents,” Kapoor added.

The transport commissioner will hold a meeting with education department and BMC officials next week to frame a fresh set of guidelines. Earlier this week, school education minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil also stressed that a standard for school buses should be formulated. He said officials of his department would meet with the transport commissioner about this.

In January and February, surprise raids on vehicles ferrying schoolchildren in the eastern, western and central suburbs, led to the RTO booking more than 75 drivers under various offences. Most of them were driving without a valid licence. The officials also booked several autorickshaw drivers ferrying eight to nine children stuffed in one
vehicle.

After the Millat School accident, school authorities denied admissions to students who did not opt for the school bus services. BEST also started offering services to schools following the incident, and Millat was the first to avail this facility.

“We are refusing admissions to students from lower classes, who do not opt for school bus services. We have increased the numbers of buses in our school from 20 to 26. There are five BEST buses plying exclusively for our schools. All our buses have grills in the windows, but some parents still prefer to send their kids in private vehicles, especially in areas where the school buses cannot ply. So we conduct regular checks on these private vehicles to see if they are following the mandatory guidelines,” said secondary section headmaster, Shoaib Hashmi.