Bangalore: The Bangalore Traffic Police has booked a whopping 1,428 cases against errant school cab operators in the past two months. The cases were booked because the cab drivers were ferrying more than the allowed number of children. This drive is the result of a notification issued by the Transport Department on June 16 which framed rules for the carrying of school children in cabs. Some of these rules included special colours for school cabs and limited seating arrangements not exceeding the seating capacity of the vehicle.
Shivajinagar area tops the list with close to 520 violations recorded by the police. “This is because there are more schools under Shivajinagar police station,” explained Dr M A Saleem, Additional Commissioner of Police. The next area in the list is Ashoknagar with 150 violations. The data shows that school cab drivers continue to flout the rules inspite of the Transport Department making it very clear that these rules would be enforced from end of July.
In conversation with City Express, Maruthi Sambrani, Joint Commissioner (Enforcement) said, “We will take strict action against who violates the law, Bringing in the changes in the Motor Vehicle Act, the department has plans to implement a new rule (school cab amendment) to allow the private vehicles to carry school children and the private cabs should be in white with a horizontal strip in highway yellow.”
Further, he added that besides ensuring safety of children, the new scheme would be advantageous for individual vehicle owners as well. “They should be also connected to school authorities and the number of children carried shall not exceed oneand- a-half times the permitted seating capacity,” he added.
Schools, which are supposed to create school safety committees under the notification also seem to be lagging behind in implementing the same. “We have constituted ‘School Core Committee’ which often inspects all vehicles documents and drivers. We appointed one of our faculty as a traffic warden to look after the safety and security of children,” said K S V Subramanya, Principal of B M English School, Shivaji Nagar.
While the rules were framed with a mind of making the almost inhuman conditions a little better for school children, in the absence of implementation, the only ones suffering are the children who are packed like sardines in a can.
Comments
0 comment