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Poor implementation of transportation scheme puts schoolchildren’s life in peril

LUDHIANA: The Safe School Vahan Scheme — for safe transportation of children from home to school and back — is not being implemented by private schools in letter and spirit.

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Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, October 18

The Safe School Vahan Scheme — for safe transportation of children from home to school and back — is not being implemented by private schools in letter and spirit. Many conditions of the scheme are being openly flouted which have forced many parents to prefer drop and pick their children from school on their own.

Despite the regulation, several of the conditions, including speed governors and CCTV cameras, are not installed on the school buses in many schools. These equipment are hardly installed in the buses of many schools.

In some of the schools, even if they are installed, these equipment does not function properly. When asked, a school bus driver said these were not functioning due to some technical glitch. Another said that a card is installed in the cameras, but so it is not possible to really show if the cameras were working.

One of the reasons for lack of implementation of the scheme is that many schools do not own the school transport and have their contractors and wash their hands off whenever any problem related to school buses arises, including the violation of norms and lack of implementation of the scheme.

Recently, two girls went missing and the school had no idea about them, they neither reached the school nor came back home.

When the school authorities asked the school bus drivers, he lied saying he dropped them to the school, whereas he had actually dropped them near the school and there was no CCTV footage of the incident as the cameras were not working. Fortunalety both of them were found later.

Many of the school buses still do not have the attendant aboard the bus, while there is no implementation of the scheme, as students continued to be sent through auto-rickshaws and vans, even if they continue to flout rules with impunity.

Sanjeev Jain, a parent, said, “Schools do not follow the safety rules. I prefer to drop and pick my kids from school myself. The government must ensure that all rules for the safety of children are strictly followed.”

Safe School Vahan Scheme

  • School Education department has been entrusted with a special responsibility to properly maintain school buses and their use following the provisions of Motor Vehicle Act, 1988, and the Supreme Court rulings
  • The scheme has been formulated by the Transport department. 
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