Mahendragarh road accident: District administration wakes up, calls road safety meeting after 4 months

Ravinder Saini

Mahendragarh, April 14

Waking up from slumber, the district administrative authorities have called a meeting of district road safety and Surakshit School Vahan Policy Samiti in Narnaul town here on April 15.

Significantly, the previous meeting of the samiti was held four months ago — on December 12 — and thereafter, it was scheduled thrice in the past 20 days but was every time postponed citing administrative reasons. The authorities also did not even bother to schedule the meeting in the three months after December 12.

Moreover, the agenda of the meeting also indicates the difference between the action taken by the Regional Transport Authorities (RTA) and traffic police against school buses in the month of February and the past two days after the tragic road mishap that claimed the lives of six schoolchildren on April 11.

“Only a total of six buses were found plying without complying with the norms of Surakshit School Vahan Policy during the checking operations in February. Among those, four buses were challaned by the RTA and two others by the traffic police. The permit of none of the buses was either cancelled or suspended. During the operation, a total of 80 school buses (42 by the RTA and 38 by the traffic police) were checked,” said sources.

On the other hand, the district authorities have impounded 46 school buses and challaned 99 buses in the past three days after the road mishap. A total of 284 schools buses have been checked.

Now, questions are being raised that when the district authorities can penalise 80 buses in merely two days, why did it not take such sort of action in February and later? The terrible mishap could have been averted had such a checking operation been conducted earlier.

Sources maintained a total of 196 vehicles were, as per the meeting agenda, challaned for overspeed and 31 were for drunken driving in February, but licence of no driver was forwarded for suspension.

“Mahendragarh district also witnessed a total of 227 road mishaps in the six months (from July to December 2023) in which 113 persons lost their lives and 188 sustained injuries. 13 among them were injured grievously.

Deputy Commissioner Monika Gupta said various committees of the officials had been carrying out inspections and the compliance of all norms of the Surakshit School Vahan Policy would be ensured.