The YSR Congress party president Jaganmohan Reddy has demanded that the State government entrust the task of operation of private school buses to the APSRTC and initiate foolproof safety precautions at all the bridges across the State to safeguard the lives of schoolchildren.
Mr. Jagan visited Chandrugonda and Kothagudem mandals on Thursday to console the grief-stricken family members of the eight schoolchildren those who perished in Tuesday's accident involving a private school bus near Tungaram.
Speaking at Repallewada after consoling the bereaved family members of one of the victims - Pradeep, an LKG student of LV Reddy Memorial School, he deplored that the spate of accidents involving school buses in the State exposed the susceptibility of schoolchildren.
Only a few weeks ago, four schoolchildren were killed in a school bus accident in East Godavari district.
The government should wake up from slumber and initiate concrete steps to find a permanent solution to the recurring accidents involving school buses, he said.
He said the parents of the impoverished families had admitted their children in the private school for English medium education. Despite the presence of a government school in their village and financial constraints, they did so to ensure a bright future for their wards. “The situation calls for conversion of all the Telugu-medium government schools into English-medium ones,” he said.
Lashing out at the State government, he said persons at the helm of affairs lacked compassion towards the tiny tots who perished in the accident. The government shirked away from its responsibility of rendering succour to the families of the victims by sanctioning an ex gratia of Rs.50,000 each to the bereaved families, he alleged.
