Pune schools: Transport safety takes a backseat for principals, parents

At Sardar Dastur School, principal Sandhya Yannuvar, says that since the school doesn’t have its own transport, it has come out with a list of all school vans that have been employed to ply children and insist on the drivers signing an undertaking with the school. “Our teachers and helpers are present at the gate to help children into these vehicles and they ensure that children go by authorised vehicles only. However, since we don’t have our own buses, the onus remains on parents to find safe mode of transport for children. We assist them through the transport committee with regard to facilities they should look into but our main concern is for children travelling by smaller vehicles like autorickshaws as it becomes risky with too many kids boarding them,” she said.

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Principal Nandkumar Kakirde of Bal Shikshan Mandir agrees that the biggest challenge in regulating the school transport is that of ensuring safe autorickshaw travel. “Unlike school vans, which require a separate permit that is not given or renewed unless they meet safety norms, the autorickshaw drivers plying schoolchildren have no such conditions to follow and that’s where the basic problem begins. Yet at each of our schools, we have maintained a list of ‘rickshaw kakas’ that parents can employ and these drivers have been trained on norms pertaining to maximum capacity of student intake, safety of children and locks on handle bars, among others. But many times, we see that parents get together and employ their own autorickshaws. We cannot refuse them since the parents are paying for that service and all we can do is reprimand them. I think here the RTO and traffic police need to step in with regular drives against such autorickshaw drivers who are found taking in more children than stipulated,” he says.

Faced with the possibility of a mishap due to unsafe transport practices by private vehicle owners, schools have started safe guarding themselves by taking an undertaking from parents that they understand the school transport-related regulations and will follow the same and in any event, will be responsible for the safety of children.

At those schools that haven’t already started the practice, they have begun to do so now. “We will also start the practice now, since we have already done our job of forming transport committee, holding meetings and informing parents, putting up boards and regulating rickshaws. But yet, we see it happening and hence, it is better that parents should take responsibility as school cannot monitor everything,” says Sr. Marissa, principal of Mount Carmel High school.

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While schools blame parents for the manner in which kids are transported, parents say that in the absence of an official school transport or exorbitant charges, they are forced to take up such measures.

“I live at B T Kawade road and my school is in Handewadi. The school’s transportation (contractual) charge is Rs 13,000 where as I pay monthly Rs 6,000 for private transportation. It is half the amount. The exorbitant charges by schools and contractors are driving away parents from official mode of transport,” says a parent.

Another parent whose child studies in a school near Shivaji Market in Camp says, “In the last 5 years that my daughter has been going to school, I have never heard of anything like a transport committee. I have not heard from school about any rules that the van and rickshaw drivers have to adhere to. We never saw any checking happening at school and have never been given any list by the school of official van contractors or vehicles they have approved. I am sending my child by autorickshaw and the driver takes at least 8 children per rickshaw. But since the school is only a lane away , I don’t mind.”