Sirmaur DC for withdrawal of Dadahu school affiliation

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, January 24

Coming down heavily on the management of DAVN School, Dadahu, for its failure to repair the school bus (HP-71-4993), which met with a fatal accident on January 5, Sirmaur Deputy Commissioner Lalit Jain on Thursday recommended withdrawal of its affiliation from the HP Board of School Education. The DC also advocated cancellation of the school’s registration.

The magisterial inquiry report has held the school management responsible for the accident that had snuffed out the lives of seven students and the driver. The number of those injured in the mishap was 11. The DC has also recommended shifting of pupils to other institutions.

With a number of negligence cases coming to the fore across the state, the recommendation will help tighten the noose around slack school authorities.

Jain said the recommendation had been sent to the Principal Secretary (Education) to cancel the registration of DAVN School as the magisterial inquiry had found that the accident had occurred due to negligence on the part of the school management in rectifying the mechanical failure of the bus.

As per the report of the Assistant Engineer, Mechanical, PWD, Nahan, when the bus was coming from Khadkoli, the driver took a turn and at that point due to the failure of the U-joint coupling, the steering stopped working.

Though the parents as well as the bus driver, Ram Swarup, had been regularly conveying to the school principal about the mechanical fault, the latter failed to do the needful.

The driver, who had a light motor vehicle driving licence, was not fit to drive the bus as he should have had a PSV licence.

The bus owner, Dhanendra Goyal, is the school principal and in stark violation of the norms, no conductor had been appointed to take care of the pupils travelling by bus. Despite the parents and the driver asking the school management to recruit a conductor, nothing was done.

The magisterial inquiry report has also suggested that such accidents can be avoided in the future by going in for regular servicing of buses with a proper entry being made in the log book and the maintenance register of the bus. Other measures like erecting crash barriers along roads and improving the condition of rural stretches have also been suggested in the report.

Recommendation sent to Principal Secy 

• Recommendation has been sent to the Principal Secretary (Education) to cancel the registration of the school.
• It is learnt that parents and bus driver had conveyed to the school principal about the mechanical fault, but the latter did not do anything about it.
• The driver, who had a light motor vehicle driving licence, was not fit to drive the bus. He should have had a PSV licence. 
• The bus owner is the school principal and did not hire a conductor to take care of students.