Bus operators protest ‘extensive challaning’

Tribune News Service

Mohali, February 18

In view of the extensive challaning of 100 odd school buses, the operators held a protest on Tuesday morning in an open ground in Phase- VIII, here, by blocking the traffic for some time. They also parked their buses along the roads. The bus operators raised slogans against the administration, alleging that the drive was harassing the school bus operators for no reason as they have no violations, but the administration is going heavy on them.

Harbhajan Singh, President, school bus operators Association, said the administration was unnecessary harassing them and added that major violations was being done by small vehicles ferrying children. He further said the administration was targeting them only and added that they would be holding a meeting on Wednesday to decide the next course of action.

However, the administrative officials refuting the allegations said they were only following the directions of the Chief Minister of Punjab in the wake of Sangrur incident in which four children were charred to death after a school van had caught fire.

It may be mentioned here that in accordance with the directions of the CM, the district administration on Monday had launched an extensive drive as part of the statewide action to check the buses and other transport vehicles that are used for ferrying school children.

Girish Dayalan, Deputy Commissioner, said the drive had been launched to enhance the safety of the children in the buses to avert any further incident like school bus incident in Sangrur and added that the mission would continue to ensure the safety of school children and nobody would be allowed to play with their lives.

Meanwhile, continuing extensive challaning about 127 vehicles challaned, 26 impounded during the extensive drive by various SDMs in their respective areas to check the road worthiness of school vehicles in the Mohali district.

Secretary of the Regional Transport Authority said the drive was undertaken in Mohali, Derabassi and Kharar. The RTA head Sukhwinder Kumar checked 37 buses out of which 13 were impounded while 24 were challaned. Kharar SDM Himanshu Jain challaned 19 vehicles and impounded one, ATO Simran Sra challaned 6 vehicles and impounded two. SDM Mohali Jagdeep Sehgal challaned nine vehicles while four were impounded. SDM Derabassi Kuldeep Bawa impounded six vehicles, while issuing challans to eight. Not only this, the traffic police also challanned 61 vehicles during the drive, he added.