Traffic cops to crack down on school buses

When the drive was launched last month, the challaning remained confined to about a week, following which most schools had announced the winter vacation, some of them advancing it due to the drive. When the schools finally reopened, earlier this month, the police were celebrating the Ninth Road Safety Week.

Balbir Singh told Chandigarh Newsline that every private school in the city, in all 85 of them, would be covered under the drive. "We will cover each and every school in the city at least once so that they realise the seriousness of the matter," he said.

Meanwhile, the Chandigarh School Bus Operators Welfare Association, a body of nearly 110 school bus operators in the city has written to the traffic police asking them to postpone the drive till April end. Manjit Singh Saini, president of the association has described the drive as "unnecessary harassment," of school bus operators.

"We have asked the police not to challan or impound vehicles in mid-session. Parents will stop sending their children in school buses if we increase the bus fares now. And that is the only way to survive if we reduce the number of children we carry, according to the STA specifications," he says.

While bus operators complain that the police have not given them time enough to make changes in their prevalent way of functioning, police officials argue that they are only stressing on what is legal. "We are only enforcing what is already laid down in the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 or in the STA guidelines. If we allow bus drivers to carry children beyond the specified capacity or without following necessary regulations, it could result in a serious mishap some time, like the one in Delhi, in November last year,"reasons Balbir Singh.

The current bus fares for school children every month is about Rs 200 per child. It is learnt that a local school has already issued a circular, hiking the fare to Rs 230. With the traffic police closing in for the kill, other schools are expected to follow suit.