Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The Traffic Management Police held a meeting of school representatives on Wednesday to impress upon them the need to follow the Supreme Court guidelines regarding school/college buses and also to discuss as to how to make school students aware of road safety rules
DCP, Traffic Management said that it is the responsibility of the school to follow the rules and guidelines made for students' safe movement. Character certificates of school bus drivers must be made and it should also be ensured that they are not addicted to liquor. Their eye and health tests must also be done. Safety equipment provided in school buses like fire extinguishers, first aid boxes and CCTV cameras must be checked for their functionality. Similarly, the functioning of the emergency door of the buses must also be ensured.
The managements were asked to ensure regular and weekly fitness checks of buses, tyres, gears and engine. They were also asked to see to it that bus drivers and conductors wear their uniforms and pick up and drop children only from designated safe pickup and drop points.
Salient points of SC guidelines for school/college buses
· A bus must be painted yellow and ‘On School Duty’ must be written on the front and rear of the bus.
· It should have a first aid kit, fire extinguisher and cross bars (grills) should be installed on windows of the bus.
· The name and telephone number of the institute should be written on the bus.
· There should be a trained conductor to take care of children on the bus.
· The bus driver should have at least five years of experience in driving heavy vehicles.
· No person who has been punished with a traffic fine twice in a year for offences like breaking red light signal, violating road lane discipline or allowing an unauthorised person to drive can be appointed as a driver.
· If a driver has been issued a traffic fine even once for driving faster than the prescribed speed, driving under the influence of alcohol or driving in a dangerous manner, then he cannot be appointed.
· According to Section 2 (47) of the Motor Vehicles Act 1988, an educational institution bus is a transport vehicle and requires permission to ply on the road. Being a transport vehicle, it is required to undergo a fitness test every year, without which its permission cannot be renewed.
DCP (traffic) Manish Kumar Agarwal, additional DCP Sushil Kumar Tiwari, additional DCP Arvind Kumar Tiwari, ACP Naresh Kumar Annotia, ACP Manoj Kumar Khatri, ACP Kiran Kumar Sharma, Inspector Supriya Chaudhary, inspector Arjun Singh Panwar, reserve inspector (RI) AartiMaurya and RI Rakesh Sharma were present with 50 school representatives in the meeting.
