New rules to make school transport safer in Pune

The regional transport office (RTO), Pune, along with several other organisations on Thursday conducted a workshop to educate the school managements, vehicle owners and parents about the dos and don’ts of school transport safety.

The three-hour event was held at Tilak Smarak Mandir from 10 am. The RTO, Arun Yeola, said such workshops would be organised in phases to cover all 6,000 schools in Pune district.

“We have to implement the new guidelines set by the home department,” Yeola said.

“The schools have to appoint traffic wardens to control traffic during school hours. We along with the traffic police would train the traffic wardens on how to handle the traffic,” he added.

According to him, the district education department must check whether a new school that has applied for permission must have parking space for vehicles inside the school.

While making a PowerPoint presentation, deputy RTO Jitendra Patil said that the state home department had issued a notification on March 22, 2011, to make school transport safer.

Under the new norms, the owner of the school bus has to pay an annual tax of Rs100 per seat instead of the previous Rs330 per seat. The vehicle should not be over 15 years old and it has to carry a complete list of every student, giving details such as name, class, residential address, contact number, blood group and the points of stoppage.

It is mandatory for the school buses to have yellow colour on both rear and front side of the vehicle. If the vehicle is hired on contract, it must carry a board written ‘On School Duty’.

Under the norms, the drivers must have five years of driving experience and not more than two cases of accidents or conviction should be registered against them. Besides, the driver has to get a character certificate from the police and undergo medical check-up twice a year.

A representative of New India School, Meena Chandavarkar, said that schools would need time to comply with the state government’s instructions.

One of the parents, Raj Chirputkar, said schools should have meetings with parents associations on the issue.

The president of Pune District Luxury Bus Association, Balasaheb Khedekar, suggested that there should be uniformity in the rules and they should not be changed frequently.