Bhopal: Hundreds of school and college going students will face harrowing time as their bus, auto, van drivers and conductors have decided to go on leave en masse from Wednesday to protest alleged harassment by police personnel.
MP School Vahan Chalak Seva Samiti, an organisation of drivers and conductors, has decided to go on an indefinite voluntary mass leave in a protest against their online character verification. The committee accused district administration and police of harassing them in the name of character verification. The mandatory online character verification feature was added in the verification process following the Indore’s Delhi Public School bus accident.
Under this, drivers and conductors of the uses, vans and autos ferrying school and college students have been asked to apply for character verification online. Thereafter they have to go to police stations to collect the certificates, which they say is very taxing and time consuming. Around 100000 odd students taking buses, vans and autos for schools and colleges will be at receiving end as their around 10,000 drivers and conductors have decided to shun work and go on leave en masse in protest for indefinite time.
The driver claimed that the online verification method is far from their understanding and very time consuming. When they go to police station for collecting the certificate, the cops behave with us as we were criminals, said one of the committee members. During checking drive, if a driver and conductor fail to produce character verification certificates, the cops seize the bus for the whole night and releases it only next morning, said President of Vahan Samiti Shivkumar Soni.
“The drivers and conductor spend whole night in the bus as they have to take it to carry students next morning. Spending whole night on police station premises creates a mental pressure on them. This poses a threat to the security of the students,” said Soni. After the tragic bus accident, the administration has tightened the norms and we need some time to complete the paper works, said Soni, adding that we thus have decided to go on mass leave till we all get character verification process completed.
In the last ten days following the Indore bus accident, around 200 school buses and vans were issued challans in the city. Police and district officials have checked over 700 vehicles during various drives.
