The drive to ensure that school buses in the State are made fit and safe to carry children will be on full steam till each one of the 18,595 registered vehicles gets a Fitness Certificate (FC). From Monday till Wednesday evening 408 cases have been registered.
Fitness certificates of 13,346 of the vehicles were renewed, while the school managements or individual owners of all of these 408 bus owners have been fined and the vehicles released on condition that they get them repaired in tune with the parameters. Affidavits have been signed and given to the authorities that the vehicles will be brought back to the concerned Road Transport Authority office for FCs.
“We are not doing anything new. We will not stop till the remaining 5,249 buses get FCs. We are only implementing the Government Order of 2011 which stipulates among other things, the need for school bus drivers with a minimum of five years’ experience and Fitness Certificates (FC) to be renewed,” said Transport Commissioner-Telangana, Sandeep Kumar Sultania.
When contacted, he said that from a month-long campaign where they motivated school managements to send their buses for renewing fitness, they had moved on to cracking the whip on those buses that were yet to come forward, yet. “We have now stepped up our drive across the State to ensure that within the shortest possible time, there will be no school bus on the road that is unfit and unsafe to carry children to school,” Mr. Sultania stated.
“The government is serious about the matter and four special squads with Motor Vehicle Inspectors in each district are on the job,” said Joint Transport Commissioner J. Pandurang Naik.
General fitness includes accurate braking systems and suspension, wipers in good working condition and good, if not new tyres and emergency systems. This apart, other parameters include an attendant to help to the children, a fire extinguisher and first-aid kit.
