THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: For the children who rely on public transport, attending school is often a tedious task, which involves facing the rush as well as abuses in buses. It is in this backdrop that the district administration is envisaging the project ‘Operation Savarigirigiri’ to ensure a safe journey for school students.
And now, a WhatsApp group has also come up to lend a helping hand to end the travel woes of school children.
The WhatsApp collective, ‘Mathottam’, comprising around 100 residents of Mathottam, will offer free bus service for the to and fro journey of students to schools. The students-only bus service will have a morning service on every school working day from Arakkinar to BEM Girls Higher Secondary School at Mananchira, taking the students staying from Arakkinar to Meenchanda railway gate to their schools on the way. The trip will start at 8.45 am and will drop the students in every school on the route. The bus will also have a return trip, starting from Mananchira at 3.50 pm to Beypore, taking all the children on the route back home. Children in all the schools along the route can make use of the service. Separate halt points, different from that of the normal buses, will be there for the bus during mornings and it will halt according to the children’s request during the evening transit.
“Sufferings of the children to get to schools, including second-rate treatment in buses, made us take up the initiative.
The ‘Operation Savarigirigiri’ to be launched by the district administration further inspired us to get into the venture and we presented it during the meeting convened by the District Collector to discuss the new project,” pointed out Subhash Chandra Bose, the coordinator of the collective.
“We have already raised the funds for the bus service for the whole academic year from the group members and have also arrived at a contract with the bus owners’ association. They have agreed to offer us two buses; one during the morning time and other in the evening for the service aimed at the students and we will pay them the amount in advance for each month,” he adds.
The buses will have the ‘students-only free bus service’ boards for distinguishing it from other buses and the service will be inaugurated by District Collector N Prashanth at Mathottam on September 15. Nisar, Nisar, Jabir, Mirsha and Dr Mujeeb are also leading the collective in the initiative.