Safety norms galore but none to monitor

Lack of proper mechanism to monitor whether vehicles ferrying children to and from schools adhere to rules killed 13-year-old Abhishek.

Though enough rules have been set to ensure the safety of children, authorities have been passing the buck when it comes to implementation. At least six accidents involving vehicles ferrying students have been reported this year. Yet, the authorities have not woken up to the danger.

DNA has learnt that transport officials merely wrote to the department of primary and secondary education on the safety of children taking school-run or other vehicles. “The RTO officials had written to us a month ago, and based on that letter, we issued a circular to schools. However, we can’t act against erring vehicles and RTO is the authority to take action. In our reply to the RTO, we have mentioned the same,” director of primary and secondary education DS Rajanna said.

Following several complaints, the department of public instructions had recently issued a circular, directing all state-board affiliated schools to make their vehicles safer.

An effective mechanism to monitor whether schools had taken the circular seriously, however, was never put in place. Besides school-run and BMTC buses, as many as 2,500 privately-owned vehicles, ferry schoolchildren in the city.

Transport commissioner Bhaskar Rao said that these private vehicles could not be banned. “Who will ferry them (the children) otherwise?” he asked.

On Wednesday’s mishap, he said: “The consolation lies in the fact that the vehicle was not a maxi-cab.” The commissioner, however, did not elaborate. Rao said his department would penalise the owner of the mini-bus,  if the vehicle was found to be faulty.

The commissioner said his department would not investigate the accident. “Once we get a report from the police, and if we find that the accident was due to a faulty vehicle, we will penalise its owner,” he said.

The transport department, incidentally, had plans to introduce a new scheme called School Cab, to ensure safer travel for students. The plan was now under the government’s consideration, Rao said.

(With inputs from Vidya Iyengar and Rashmi Belur)