Despite the state witnessing a series of accidents that claimed the lives of many school students in the past few years, it seems that the authorities have not yet learned any lessons.
With less than a week left for the schools to reopen, the authorities are still to implement any safety arrangements which could ensure that the children can travel safe.
Though directives and guidelines to ensure the security of school students while travelling were issued jointly by the State Motor VehiclesDepartment (MVD) and the district administration, the Regional Transport Office and the Deputy Director of Education (DDE) continue to flout the rules.
Though pre-monsoon fitness check has been made mandatory by the MVD, sources say that no such check up has been conducted in the city till now.
Also, a directive was issued to the DDE to collect the details of school which have their own buses. The history of drivers involved in operating the school buses also has to be probedd.
(If a driver is found to be drunk, he has to be removed from duty). However, the DDE has totally failed to bring up the list.
But even though it has been year since the guidelines were issued, no follow up has been conducted in this regard.
Ernakulam RTO B J Antony said that currently, there is no effective monitoring system to identify the criminal back ground of drivers.
If such issues are brought to notice, strict action will be taken, he said.Antony added that as many as 90 per cent of total buses of the educational institutions in the district have already received the yearly fitness certificate test last month. “So, we didn’t enforce them to another pre-monsoon test”, he added.As per the MVD directive, the age of school bus should not exceed 15 years, as it will be a threat to safety.
The RTO, however denied such a norm stating that a court order issued recently was not in favour of the directive.
The directions such as first aid box, registration book, phone number are not also followed properly.