Transport authorities on Tuesday determined fitness of 600 school buses and vans and put on hold renewal of licence to 75 vehicles.
While 74 buses had minor defects in the form of inadequacy of first-aid paraphernalia, in one bus the platform was weak and required replacement, Transport Department officials said.
District Collector S. Prabakar and Revenue Divisional Officer In-Charge S. Suresh joined Regional Transport Officers and Deputy Superintendents of Police in inspecting the buses, fulfilling a mandatory exercise under Tamil Nadu Motor Vehicles (Regulation and Control of School Buses) Special Rules 2012.
The Rules warrants formation of District-level Inter-Departmental Committee and School-Level Transport Committee, and requires drivers to maintain log books on daily basis to point out defects and get them rectified.
After the rules came into effect, schools could appoint only those licence holders with minimum of five years of driving experience in similar category of vehicles. The drivers are required to undergo driving skill test before school level transport committee once in a year, also undergo eye test at the time.
During the inspection, the officials ensured that every bus was of semi-saloon type with steel body, and fully painted in yellow colour. The inspecting team made sure that the name and address of the school, and contact phone number were painted on left rear exterior.
In every bus, footboard height had to be below 250 mm. The team particularly looked for the strength of the floor board, fitment of speed governors, and availability of first aid box and fire extinguishers.
Staff Reporter in
Namakkal adds
Officials of the Regional Transport Office, Tiruchengode, inspected 180 vehicles of schools and colleges in Tiruchengode here on Tuesday.
There are 58 private educational institutions that come under the RTO – Tiruchengode, in which there are 645 vehicles that transport students. Annual inspection of vehicles began on May 3 and is being carried out by a team led by RTO in-charge Duraisamy, DSP Suresh and Motor Vehicle Transport Inspector Raju, Ranganathan and Nithya. A total of 350 were inspected so far in which 93 vehicles failed to fulfil the 22-point guidelines issued by the State government. On Tuesday, Collector V. Dakshinamoorthy inspected the emergency exit in vehicles, first aid boxes and fire extinguishers in the vehicles. He instructed officials to give clearance for vehicles only if all the norms and guidelines are followed. Later, he interacted with drivers and asked them to be on maximum alert while transporting students.
