new bus could be put to use for six to seven years by the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) based on the distance that it covers.
“Of the close to 2,200 government buses in the Coimbatore Division of TNSTC comprising Coimbatore, The Nilgiris, Tirupur and Erode districts, as many as 900 buses have either crossed the period for which they could be put to use or are on the verge of reaching that condition,” says K. Elangovan, secretary, TNSTC Staff Federation.
There are buses that are in use for more than 10 years in the region due to inadequate funds to replace them with new vehicles. This leaves the transport corporation with no other option but to maintain the existing buses till new buses are inducted.
Following the fall of a woman commuter from a TNSTC bus in Punalur in Kerala in mid September, teams from the Transport Department led by motor vehicle inspectors checked the condition of buses in 27 different aspects from bumper to bumper in the third week of September.
“These teams identified faults in vehicles and what corrections should be made,” he said and added that they also identified a few vehicles that should not be used to commute passengers till the faults were rectified.
On September 30, technical experts from the TNSTC conducted an inter-district vehicle check on the condition of buses. Smaller repair works are carried out at the respective bus depots while the major works are carried out at the bigger work stations in Pollachi and Mettupalayam.
But inadequate funds seem to be an issue of concern to carry out these works as there is a need for spare parts for completion of some of the repair works.
Apart from this, every bus should have an emergency first aid kit to get the Fitness Certificate, but a majority of the buses do not have one.
Even in the buses that have one, the kit’s utility period has expired and is not replaced against the mandatory replacement to be done every two years.
