COIMBATORE: The Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation spent `3,69,087 between May 2012 and November 2014 to buy medicines and other materials kept in the first aid boxes in its buses.
But according to Daniel Jesudas, a city-based Right to Information Act activist who obtained the information more than half the TNSTC buses plying in the city have empty boxes or do not have them at all. Often, they are used to keep clothes.
“I wanted to know how much money is spent on maintaining TNSTC buses and I have been filing RTI petitions for that. I received this reply to a query on first aid boxes, but more than half of the 1,100-odd buses plying in the city do not have the first aid kits,” he told Express.
“Only the newly introduced buses, 100-200 yearly, will have first aid kits,” said M Arunagirinathan, general secretary of CITU, Coimbatore. “Even these will not have lids that can be opened and closed, but glass covers which must be broken to take the medicines. Once taken out, first aid materials are seldom replaced,” he added.
However, a senior TNSTC official, pointing out that the kit was a pre-requisite to get the fitness certificate for buses, said, “Regional Transport Officers will not issue FCs if buses do not have it. They will also levy fines up to `2,000. But keeping essential medicines in the box would cost only around `300. There is thus no question of the buses not having the kits.”
“The first aid kits are kept as per the Motor Vehicles Act. These can be used only to treat minor injuries. They were useful when hospitals were few and transport slow. Now, they don’t mean much, but it is good if they are kept as per the Act,” said consumer activist, Kathrimathiyon.
He also said that most boxes do not have locks and keys. If they have, the key would often not be there in the bus.
There are two or three types of boxes fixed in the buses and one type may not have lock and key, said TNSTC official.
Meanwhile, a random check of 10-15 buses by Express showed that those plying in the city did not have the kit fixed on the partition behind the driver’s seat, where the box is normally fixed. But buses to nearby towns had them, though some were seen to be broken (see picture).