Many school managements are ignoring the safety of children, and school buses are being operated without getting mandatory fitness and tax clearance certificates from Transport Department. The department officials seized nine such buses recently.
The seized buses belonged to Sri Vidya School, Marredpally, Chaitanya School, Champapet, and Niveditha School, Balapur, Indo-American School, Champapet, Satyam School, Champapet, Vivekananda School, Ibrahimpatnam, Vignan School, Ibrahimpatnam, Krishnaveni School and MRR School, Ibrahimpatnam.
Transport department officials said that, each school management was imposed a penalty from Rs.5,000 to Rs.8,000, and for some schools they imposed over Rs.45,000 as penalty for non-payment of road tax.
It is mandatory for school management to take school bus fitness certificate before May 15 every year. It is said that there are over 1,300 buses from different educational society and nearly 200 school buses needed to pay the tax and get certificates from department. It is also said that many of the school managements failed in getting fitness certificate, because there is no proper maintenance and prescribed rules are not being followed by them like provision of attendants in buses, first aid box and window safety grills, etc. especially inexperienced drivers are recruited by many managements to operate the buses.
They advice the parents to check the above norms at the time of parents and teachers coordination committee meetings and if school management violates the rules then parents can inform the department.
Source: The Hindu