New instructions for school buses

HYDERABAD: The tragic accident of a Sri Kaleswari bus en-route to Shirdi that claimed 30 lives last Saturday led to a week-long crackdown on private bus operators. Now the transport department has issued a fresh set of instructions to school and college managements to prominently display the details of the bus driver in each bus. These details should not only have the driver’s name and driving license number, but also his complete address.
Transport department officials said that a large number of buses in Ranga Reddy and Hyderabad districts were plying without the mandatory fitness certificate. Ironically, this kind of vigilance was missing until now and school and college buses were rarely inspected. But now, officials say that thousands of buses are plying illegally and that the institutions they belong to will be penalized if they fail to get their fitness certificate on time.
So far, the transport department has seized 325 school buses from across the state. Transport department officials have also uploaded a government order on its website laying down additional conditions for school buses, one of which is that the parents committee would inspect each school bus to check if it’s fit for ferrying their children. Although impressed with the newfound interest in their child’s safety, parents said that most schools in the city do not even have a parent’s committee in place and these are the schools that are most likely to flout safety norms in their buses.