Journalism of Courage
The Maharashtra School Bus Owners’ Association (SBOA) called off its indefinite strike on Friday within 24 hours of its launch. The bus owners and operators said they will ply the buses with black flags on them as mark of protest against the state government.
“We received a good response from all our members and the strike was successful across the state. But we called off the strike considering the inconvenience faced by school going children and their parents. We will resume our services immediately and mark our protest by putting up black flags on our buses,” said SBOA president Anil Garg. “Our issue has already been referred to the High Court and we will pursue the matter there. We have full faith in judiciary.”
Janardhan Murkute of Pune bus owners’ association said,”The CM urged us to call off the strike and assured us that our demands will be discussed. Hence many operators are likely to resume bus service from tomorrow.”
The decision of the school bus owners came immediately after the state transport department issued a warning. “The bus owners’ association did not give any prior notice to us before going on a strike. We called them for a meeting,but they were adamant and launched their strike. We issued a written warning,asking them to call off their strike or we would not address any of their issues. We warned them of punitive action for inconveniencing students,” said Shailesh Kumar Sharma,Transport Secretary.
With alternative arrangements made by the schools and parents taking responsibility to drop their children,most of the city schools remained open on Friday. “We did not face any difficulty because the bus drivers have been working with us for over 11 years and they continued to ply despite the strike,” said Nalini Sengupta,principal,Vidya Valley School.
Over 1,100 children and 72 teachers commute in 23 school buses which operate on contractual basis.
Symbiosis Secondary School,Prabhat Road,had over 85 per cent attendance in junior and senior sections on Friday. “We did not get any calls from parents and classes were held without any hiccup,” said Leena Chaudhari ,principal.
“We arranged for a rickshaw to drop and pick the children from school. The bus operators had already informed about the strike so we had booked rickshaws,” said Ujjaini Pai,a parent of Symbiosis Secondary School student.
However,DAV,Aundh,had to close down on account of non-availability of buses.
“We were forced to reschedule Friday’s final examination paper to March 16. Though the bus drivers insisted on a safe ride to school,we chose not to take risk,” said Jayshree Venkatraman,principal. The school has 42 buses on contract.
Nana Kshrisagar from Pune Chalak Malak Sangathana and Gulamali Bhaldar from Pimpri Chinchwad Vidyarthi Vahtuk Sangathana said though they supported the issues raised by bus operators,they did not participate in the strike due to ongoing examinations.
Maharashtra Bus Owners Association,led by Baba Shinde,kept all their 300 buses off the road
on Friday.
While many operators have claimed that there are differences in the regulations issued by the state transport department and the state school education department,Regional Transport Officer Arun Yeola refuted such claims. “The state transport department regulations,under the Maharashtra Motor Vehicles (School Bus Regulation) Act,2011 pertain to structural changes needed by school buses. And the education department ones are more usage based and talk about issues like attendants,first aid etc. So there is no question of confusion.”
