Nearly 150 parents of the students of Kendriya Vidyalaya gathered on the CLRI campus on Friday for a candlelight vigil to condole the deaths of Tirupathi Rao, an employee of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and his 12-year-old daughter, Neeranjana, a student of class seven in Kendriya Vidyalaya, CLRI. The duo was knocked down by a garbage lorry on Wednesday morning on Sardar Patel Road. Rao’s son Ram Teja is in a critical state, after being injured in the accident.
Echoing the thoughts of many parents, who had gathered on the campus for the vigil, a parent called for serious steps to be taken against rash driving by lorry drivers. The parent said, “Please put an end to the garbage lorry chaos that has taken many lives due to negligent driving.”
The parents highlighted one major issue, which they had raised on many occasions — the traffic on the road that makes movement very difficult. They said that the Corporation garbage lorries and water tankers should stay off the road during peak hours.
“Normally the peak timings in the morning are between 8 am and 10 am. This accident took place around 7:50 am. The lorry driver was driving at a high speed, which led to the accident. This is not the first time. There have been several instances in the past, when lorry drivers have broken speed limits. Especially on this road, there are many institutions, universities and schools and there is huge traffic. Rash driving by these drivers makes the situation worse,” added Murugu, the parent of a nine-year-old student of the school.
They also demanded that a separate traffic police must be appointed during the peak hours and during the beginning and end of school hours, going by the example of other major schools in the city. In fact, the school had requested the Chennai City Traffic Police to deploy traffic personnel in the area. But even after one year of repeated requests, there has been no action so far.
When CE contacted the Chennai Traffic Police officials, they did acknowledge that the Corporation lorry drivers, especially during morning hours, drove at a very high speed to avoid traffic congestion. They added that it was high time that steps were taken to stop Corporation lorries from plying during day time.
“Just like the parents, even we want action to be taken to keep these lorries off roads during peak hours. When we pull up these lorry drivers, they manage to get away taking the name of the Corporation. What else can we do? We do not have enough force to manually control traffic in these heavy traffic areas,” said a Traffic Police official on Sardar Patel Road near Madhya Kailash.
However, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Karuna Sagar wanted the school management themselves to appoint a person to man traffic in the area.
“It is true that the traffic in the city has been ever increasing and it is important that the school should take their own steps to improve safety. They can appoint a person to control the crowd and traffic during the peak hours,” he said.
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