HYDERABAD: The Telangana Road Transport Authority is trying to clamp down on school buses plying without proper documentation. However, a loophole in the Motor Vehicle Act is being misused by schools to run school buses which do not have the required permits to be on the roads.
“The software we use at the RTA indicates the number of school buses which do not have required documents or whose permits have expired. We sent letters to schools informing the same. Some schools reason that their bus is parked at a garage for service, in which case we cannot take pre-emptive action against the buses.
The only way is to catch them on road as the Motor Vehicles Act considers only vehicles without proper documents plying on the road to be an offence,” said Panduranga Naik, Joint Transport commissioner, Hyderabad. So far 54 school buses have been seized by five teams set by RTA. The teams of five members each, tasked with checking on school buses, seized 32 buses on Tuesday. There are 2,000 school buses plying on roads in Hyderabad and 800 of them are yet to be checked for fitness, said Naik.
Transport department started the practice of annual checks on fitness of school buses in 2014 after the Masaipet incident in which 25 children died after their school bus was rammed by train at an unmanned level crossing. School bus inspections have also been carried out at Rangareddy and Medchal districts.