Trichy issues norms for school vehicles

Close on the heels of the death of a girl after slipping through a hole in the floor board of her school bus in Chennai recently, the Trichy district administration on Monday evening embarked on a move to issue a CD containing guidelines for vehicles of schools and colleges in Trichy district.

Representatives of more than 1,000 government-aided and private schools and colleges turned up for the meeting chaired by district collector Jayashree Muralidharan in the district collectorate. The meeting was held in the wake of officials of the two regional transport offices (RTOs) in Trichy temporarily cancelling the fitness certificates of 36 school vehicles for not complying with norms. Considering the ignorance of educational institutions to adhere to the motor vehicle rules, the Trichy transport department prepared a handbook packed with all the relevant details with regard to road safety, maintenance of school vehicles, qualification of drivers and conductors, duties of the vehicle assistant, management, parents and a circular dated December 9, 2012 issued by the transport commissioner.

"It is our duty to ensure the safety of our future generation. The school administration should appoint well trained drivers with at least 10 years of driving experience and maintain their vehicle periodically. The share auto-rickshaws should not ferry more than five children. Students travelling by two-wheelers should be asked to wear headgears," the collector said.

"Managements of many educational institutions do not pay heed to vehicle maintenance. So we embarked on the move in order to educate them about providing a safe journey to the children," S Balasubramaniam, RTO-Trichy said. Commenting on the lethargic attitudes of educational institutions, Trichy SP R Lalitha Lakshmi said, "Don't throw away the CDs without understanding the purpose of issuing the valuable information. Especially during the peak hours, traffic rules should be followed by the educational institution vehicles to ensure safety of the children."

The meeting mainly insisted that educational institutions appoint a person as supervisor to take care of the vehicles and a conductor be appointed for every vehicle in order to help students cross the roads. "New institutions ailing from financial crisis indulge in using unqualified vehicles. We have imposed fines on such vehicles in the recent raids," a transport department official said. As of now, there are 1,052 vehicles belonging to educational institutions in the district. RTO officials have checked 565 vehicles so far and cancelled the fitness certificates for 36 vehicles. Meanwhile RTO officials say they are ailing from a severe staff crunch to completely enforce the rules.