Mumbai: Permit issues put 15000 school buses at risk

Mumbai: The school bus owner’s association in Mumbai is facing yet another challenge as nearly 15,000 commercial school buses stand to lose their permits in 2023, after completing eight years as diesel-run commercial vehicles.

A 2001 order passed by the Bombay High Court, in Smoke Affected Residents Forum v. Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, asked for all transport vehicles over 8 years of age to be scrapped unless they are converted to run on clean fuel.

While this rule has applied to school buses for a long time, the school bus association members are asking the government to extend their permits for two more years since the buses did not ferry from 2020-2021 when the schools remained shut due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The 8-year rule is already unfair as it applies to the Mumbai division and not Thane and Navi Mumbai. The least they can do is give us two more years as the buses have technically only ferried for six,” said Anil Garg, President of the Maharashtra School Bus Owners’ Association (MSBOA).

While school buses can choose to switch to CNG, association members report that school principals and parents are hesitant to let their kids travel in clean fuel buses as CNG is a highly flammable material. “We can neither switch our fuel nor can we ply students in other divisions like Thane and Navi Mumbai, as the schools prefer to stick to their local contractors,” said another member of the bus association.

Earlier this year, the MSBOA also announced a 15-20 % school bus fee hike starting April 1, 2023. Although the decision was unpopular with the school principals and parent bodies, the association members cited heavy fines, costly buses, and rising operational costs as their reasons behind the hike.

While talking to The FPJ, the state transport commissioner, Vivek Bhimanwar, addressed the permit expiration issue faced by the school bus contractors. “The regulation is a policy-based matter and we cannot take a call on it. We have forwarded the concern of school bus contractors, and the central government will look into the matter,” said Bhimawar.

The fear of heavy fines due to expired permits now looms before the school bus contractors who went on strike in January 2023 due to allegedly unfair e-challans imposed on them. Nearly 950 Mumbai school buses were fined in the last months of 2022 for halting on roads during student pick-ups and drop-offs.