The RTO authorities have cracked down on school bus owners to check if they are flouting school bus safety norms.
The RTO authorities have cracked down on school bus owners to check if they are flouting school bus safety norms.
School bus owners, on their part, have threatened to go on strike if the government goes ahead with inspections of school buses on Monday, without first clarifying the school bus safety norms.
On November 23, nine-year-old Viraj Parmar was killed when he hit his head against a hoarding while peeping out of the school bus. The school bus owner was found to have violated eight safety norms. Following this, it was found that school bus owners were not following the safety norms strictly throughout the city.
In a meeting between the RTO official heads of Andheri and Tardeo, school bus owners and school PTA on Saturday, the bus owners claimed following the norms were difficult as parts of them were ambiguous. Another grouse of theirs was that the safety norms are being enforced only on private bus owners not on BEST buses which are also used as school buses.
Another complaint was that RTO officials were penalising drivers for rules which are not mentioned in the school bus safety policy, like speed governors, safety nets on windows, and not enough fire extinguishers.
‘While it is prescribed to have iron rods we get fined for not having safety nets outside the windows,’’ said Rashesh Shah, a bus owner.
The owners also claim that such problems would not have arisen if they were consulted while framing the school bus safety policy.
‘’There was not a single member from the school bus owners in the committee that decided on this policy. Many of the norms are practically impossible to implement,’’ said Harsh Kotak, convenor of the association.
Norms such as having special batches for the bus drivers, setting up separate bus stops for school buses, specialised training for the bus driver and attendant have not yet been implemented by the government.
‘’Schools do not co operate with us for parking. We face a lot of problems while dropping the children off at their stops. We had also asked for a teacher to be on board the bus but none of these are implemented,’’ said Anil Garg, president of the School Bus Owners’ Association.
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