Is your child safe?

Some months ago Sanoj Antu, a Class VI student of Fatima High School in Vidyavihar, rushed out to his schoolbus to secure a window seat. ...

Some months ago Sanoj Antu, a Class VI student of Fatima High School in Vidyavihar, rushed out to his schoolbus to secure a window seat. His left arm got entangled in the wheel of the bus while it was still reversing. He had to be rushed to the hospital and his hand amputated. In the trauma care ward, a shocked Sanoj kept crying: 8220;My hand is gone.8221; He died eventually.

An eight-year-old girl of St Joseph High School, Vikhroli, was crushed under a reversing school bus. This was a few days before her First Holy Communion.

In another incident, four-year-old Ekta Shah fell out of her school bus in October 1996. This could have been avoided and the cleaner locked the door of the bus.

Packed like sardines in a can and hurtling along potholes, the road to a Mumbai school could well lead to a watery grave that was the fate of some of Delhi8217;s schoolchildren yesterday.

In Mumbai, in the last one year transport-related mishaps have sent 100-125 children at the Sion Hospital under life-threatening conditions. The Nair Hospital has recorded 62 cases in the last 10 months. There have been similar instances in other public hospitals in the city. Dr Satish Dharap, co-ordinator of trauma services in Sion Hospital, feels that many of these accidents occur while the children are on a train or bus public as well as private school bus to school.

A common problem in Mumbai is the absence of a school compound where children can queue up to board a bus home. Faced with the problem of parking school buses on a busy road, Sister Edel, principal of Fort Convent School says she will soon seek the traffic police8217;s help. quot;We have four school buses, which have the capacity of carrying 50 children each. A little before the school gives over, our helpers, drivers and cleaners see to it that the children queue up to board their respective buses,quot; says she.

The only longtime solution, says Jitendra Shah, a distressed father, is that parents send their wards to the schools in the vicinity. quot;Zones should be marked and strictly followed. Children must not travel long distances to go to school,quot; says Shah.

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Unaccompanied children delightfully8217; swing along the doors in moving suburban trains or weave through the rushed traffic with surprising speed to scramble into an already bursting bus.

Vrinda Moghdev, another parent of a schoolchild has alleged cases of drunken driving, while Shah points out that vehicles rejected by other agencies are used as school buses.