93 school buses without fitness certificate in Mahendragarh

Ravinder Saini

Mahendragarh, April 15

After carrying out checking campaigns of school buses for the past three days, the district administration today directed private schools to rectify all discrepancies in their buses pertaining to the Surakshit School Vahan Policy within the next two days.

As per official records, 931 buses of private schools are registered in the district and 93 among them still do not possess fitness certificates which is mandatory for plying school buses. 145 buses have already been penalised within three days after the tragic mishap that claimed lives of six children, sources said.

Have crisis management plan

School safety committee should be formed immediately and every school should have a crisis management plan. The presence of a woman attendant and conductor is a must. Medical certificate of bus driver is mandatory. —Monika Gupta, Deputy Commissioner

Sources maintained that private school owners were directed to submit an affidavit to the district administration within 10 days regarding the compliance of all norms and guidelines under the Surakshit School Vahan Policy.

The instructions were issued by Deputy Commissioner (DC) Monika Gupta today during a meeting with owners/managers of all private schools of Nangal Choudhary and Narnaul areas of the district. The school owners/managers were also given a list of 25 conditions that are to be fulfilled under the policy to ensure the safety of children while traveling in school buses. “School safety committee should be formed immediately and every school should also have a crisis management plan. The presence of a woman attendant and conductor is a must in all buses while transporting the students. Medical certificate of bus driver is mandatory and it should be issued by the Chief Medical Officer,” the DC told school managers at the meeting.

She also warned owners of all 93 school buses without fitness certificate not to ply them without fulfilling this mandatory condition.

Responding to the question raised by school managers over the buses’ documents in the Digilocker, the DC made it clear that all Digilocker documents would be considered valid but a copy of all the documents should also be available in the bus.

The DC also directed them to install GPS, CCTV camera and ‘speed governor’ in the buses with immediate effect and to also ensure that child helpline number 1098 is mentioned on every bus.