School founder, bus driver, motor vehicles inspector among those held; protests in Tambaram
Late on Wednesday night, St. Thomas Mount Traffic Police, arrested N. Vijayan, founder-correspondent of Zion Group of Schools, in connection with the death of class II student S. Sruthi, earlier in the day. Yogeswaran, in charge of operating and maintaining the school’s buses, bus driver Seeman and an attendant were also arrested.
On Thursday evening, P. Rajasekaran, the motor vehicle inspector concerned was also arrested
The attendant is a minor, he was taken to the Children’s Home in Kellys. Though the school bus is registered in the name of Zion Matriculation School, Yogeswaran was in charge of it.
On Wednesday afternoon, six-year-old Sruthi had fallen through a gaping hole on the floor of her school bus and had then been run over by its rear wheels.
A case was registered under sections 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way) and 304 (ii) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) along with section 182 (A) (offence relating to construction and maintenance of vehicles) read with section 190 (using vehicle in unsafe condition) of The Motor Vehicles Act. The men were produced at the residence of Sandilyan, Judicial Magistrate in Saidapet, and the three adults were remanded to judicial custody and taken to Puzhal Prison.
Traffic police said a fitness certificate for the bus was issued only on July 9, a little over two weeks ago. Police also said that Transport department staff had told them that during the checks, the vehicle was in fit and proper condition and that damage to the floor of the bus might have taken place later.
Meanwhile, cadre of the Democratic Youth Federation of India staged a demonstration outside the office of the Regional Transport Officer in West Tambaram. They raised slogans against the Transport department, blaming its ‘callousness’ in issuing fitness certificates.
Stating that corruption was rife in the department, the cadre said the accident was the culmination of the continuous lethargy and indifference of the department.
This was a clear indicator that fitness certificates were being given by the department arbitrarily, without proper checks of the vehicles.
R. Srinivasan, an applicant, who had come to the office, said that normally it would take at least 15 minutes to completely check a heavy vehicle, but that this was hardly ever done.
Though senior officers were not present at the office, lower-level staff said that considering the number of vehicles that came in for fitness checks, they did not have enough officers to perform these checks. However, checks on buses transporting school students were complete and foolproof, they said.
Portions of this article have been removed for legal reasons.
The people should first accept their role in fueling the corruption
bandwagon, before they blame anybody else.
The department could be really understaffed, and added to the semi
deliberate red tape-ism common to all government offices, and the
unrest of some people (those who value time more than money)
corruption is being made the norm.
It started like this, initially people who would pay up were given
more preference and this led to an increase in the no. of people
opting for this short cut. This gradually gave way to the situation
where now if you want to get your work done in a clean way, it will
take a lot of time and you will have to face the
uncooperative(underfed) Govt. staff. The corruption which took so many
years in getting a stronghold cannot get vanished in a day..there has
to be long term solutions and everybody should be patient
By the way corruption is projected as the only big, intimidating
and formidable monster in the scene, but there are many other things
This is the worst ,unacceptable,irrational and lame excuse i ever heard(i'm not surprised to here it from a government servant though). Lets say,we accept school buses are thoroughly checked. The safety of a thoroughly checked vehicle itself is questionable and this raises the question 'what is the condition in which other vehicles operate?'. I think we all know the answer, you just need enough money to grease their palms.
"considering the number of vehicles that came in for fitness checks,
they did not have enough officers to perform these checks" - Is this
the reason the department wants to give? Shame on you if you cannot
staff your department. With the legitimate fees you collect itself for
the number of vehicles that come in you can staff the department
better. If your staff cannot check the vehicle then do not give the
permit, or move the service to a better staffed departments where work
load is low.
Clearly the whole game is all about making money. Buying second hand vehicles, greasing
the authorities, providing minimum infrastructure and obtaining donations under the garb of
"improvement" is part of the game. Whilst everybody has woken up to the safecty factor,
there is also the hygiene factor which is of utmost importance in educational institutions.
The wash rooms and toilets in these schools have to be seen to be believed. No water, all
pervading stink in the adjoining classrooms, no one to listen to complaints. How are female
teachers and students going to attend to their menstrual needs within such an
infrastructure? Do we have to wait for another incident/accident before these issues are
addressed?
As the carelessness of both school management and transport department officials has led to the death of a primary class student, Government has to take severe actions against both these groups of people. Rigid rules have to be placed to avoid such kind of incidents in the future at least. As education becomes a business rather than a service to the young community, I doubt whether the change will come in the near future. Awareness is required in all levels of both the government and the public.
The RTO must not be spared. He is responsible for the corruption under
his nose. Please have a random check of school & college buses and one
would be shocked to see the pathetic condition of these buses.
The RTO & team is known for taking bribes. Even 90% of the drivers
driving various types of vehicles are not fit enough to drive and their
licenses have been obtained through these fraudulent methods
It takes the death of an innocent promising child to get the Transport Department to act. The child died in vain because of the carelessness of the school administration, the total disregard of safety by the operators and the greed and corruption in the Transport Department.
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