Even as the Motor Vehicles Department (MVD) had issued specific guidelines on the operation of educational institution vehicles, taking students’ safety into account, a number of rural schools in the district threw them to the wind by handing over the responsibility to unprofessional private operators in the last academic year.
Most private service providers, who managed to get the vehicles registered in the names of schools to claim tax concessions, operated them without even renewing vehicle insurance and fitness certificates.
MVD sources said that the school authorities had been reluctant to take up students’ travel independently, and that they had handed it over to private players. The unsafe practice was was exposed when some school buses were intercepted for security checking recently, the sources added.
The school managements reportedly flouted rules to save the cost of buying own vehicles and to avoid payment of maintenance charges.
MVD officials said that they had recently intercepted six such buses in the district, and that none of them was directly owned by any school management. All buses had followed the prescribed colour code bearing the names of schools to create the impression that they were all owned by school managements.
Playing safe
When the MVD squad met some head teachers as part of an inquiry into unsafe vehicle service, they were found “ignorant” of the entire issue and claimed that there were no such vehicles registered in their names. Though the MVD squads refused to buy the argument, the managements continued to assert their stance for a safe exit from legal complications.
In Koodaranhi panchayat alone, three such school buses were intercepted by the MVD squad last month. Private schools in the region have been permitting the operation of buses whose fitness certificates have not been renewed after 2015. The headmaster of a school also claimed that the institution had no association with private operators.
Meanwhile, MVD sources said that they would go ahead with legal action, including suspension of permits, in all the recently traced cases.
‘No immunity’
They also pointed out that the managements could not claim immunity as they were supposed to appoint a nodal officer at the school to manage students’ travel and other safety issues. The head of the institution will be held accountable in such cases, they added.
In the last academic year, there were 55 educational institution vehicles that were not granted fitness certificates by the MVD within the Kozhikode Regional Transport Office limits alone.
Tampered parts
Most vehicles were presented for inspection with tampered speed governors, worn-out tyres, and covered safety exits.
The flaws were detected after screening around 500 such vehicles.
