Safety of children travelling in buses will remain our major priority

On day one of reopening of schools after 49-day summer vacation, the State Transport Authorities cracked the whip on errant schools for not obtaining Fitness Certificates (FC) for their bus fleet.As part of the special drive, which as usual commenced on the first day, the officials seized 32 school buses across the State, including 27 in Greater Hyderabad limits alone, for plying without fitness certificates.

A senior transport official said that unlike in the previous years, action against the managements of institutions will be more stringent this year for violating the norms.

“Safety of children travelling in buses will remain our major priority. This year, for the first time, we are planning to file chargesheets against the school management in the court of law for plying without valid permission,” said M Praveen Rao, District Transport Officer, Ranga Reddy. Whenever a bus is seized, the management would pay the fine and get the bus released. “But, this time they must pay the penalty in court,” he said.He said that as per the guidelines, buses of schools and other institutes, including engineering and degree colleges, must get the vehicle fitness certificate before the reopening of the institution. “Every year, the institute managements have to apply afresh for fitness certificates for the buses as their validity expires on May 15,” he said.

Mr Rao said that there are around 5,000 buses pertaining to educational institutions in Ranga Reddy district and as on Friday, over 3,100 vehicles have already come for fitness test and obtained the certificate. “Remaining 1,500 buses belong to CBSE, ICSE board schools, degree and engineering colleges and they still have time, as they would start in July,” he said, adding that only SSC board schools were reopened on Friday.

Joint Transport Commissioner C. Ramesh said that as many as 24,384 buses were operated by educational institutions across the State, out of which 11,571 buses had obtained fresh fitness certificate, while 12,813 vehicles are yet to renew fitness certificates. “There are 2,341 buses which are more than 15 years old,” he said, adding that the drive will continue till all the institutes got fitness certificates. He said from April 2017 to March end this year, they have booked 981 cases against the educational institutes and imposed a fee of 55.84 lakh. The department could collect only  16.54 lakh from the compounding fee.