VELLORE: The officials of the Regional Transport Office (RTO), Vellore, on Tuesday cancelled the fitness certificate (FC) of nine vehicles of schools and colleges. Also, the FCs of 41 vehicles of the educational institutions in Vaniyambadi and Ranipet RTO jurisdictions were cancelled for not meeting the standards.
After inspecting 210 vehicles (buses and vans) out of 474 vehicles of 80 educational institutions in Vellore and Gudiyattam in the joint inspection along with the city traffic police wing, the RTO cancelled the FCs of nine vehicles for not meeting the standard laid down under the Tamil Nadu Motor Vehicles (Regulation and Control of School Buses) Special Rules 2012.
According to the rules, it is mandatory that the buses should be equipped with emergency exit, fire extinguisher, first-aid box, drivers with a minimum of five years experience, grilled partition for driver cabin apart from other safety measures.
The FCs were cancelled on charges of having expired first-aid boxes, jammed doors and driver with less than five years experience. “The school administration can rectify the defects and bring the vehicles back for revoking the cancellation of the FC,” said motor vehicle inspector M P Kaliyappan.
The inspection would continue on Wednesday near the RTO office in Vellore. “We conducted a thorough check of the school and college buses before clearing them for carrying students,” said the RTO of Vellore J J Prasanna.
In Ranipet RTO jurisdiction, a total of 265 vehicles out of 318 vehicles of the educational institutions in its limit were inspected on May 15. “During the inspection, we found minor deficits in around 30 vehicles. We have issued a notice to the respective schools and colleges to rectify them,” said the RTO of Ranipet S Balasubramaniam.
The officials served notice to the schools for not properly painting the vehicle, pasting the stickers of school names and address and jammed doors. “We will issue FCs to the vehicles once the defects are rectified,” he added.
Similarly, the officials attached to the RTO of Vaniyambadi commenced the inspection of the schools and colleges buses and vans on Saturday. They completed the inspection of 190 out of 199 vehicles. Of them, 11 vehicles had minor deficits. The administration of the institutions have been issued with notice to rectify the defects and bring the vehicle for re-inspection within a period of seven days.