NEW DELHI: Despite umpteen number of incidents involving the “unsafe vans” ferrying school children, often leading to fatal accidents, the State Transport Department has failed to come out with any kind of effective and standardised safety norms for plying of such dangerous vehicles on the road putting at peril the lives of thousands of children everyday.

This Monday’s accident at Kehsavpuram in North-West Delhi, where a “unlicensed van” ferrying school children was involved in a gruesome accident with a call centre vehicle, has once again brought into focus the failure of the authorities to take preventive measures and save precious lives. What is even worse is that despite repeated incidents involving school children and these illegal vans on the city roads, the Government is yet to wake up from its slumber and put in place a policy for plying of such vehicles especially those ferrying these children.

“It has been almost two years now that a decision was taken to put in place a policy for plying of such vans which do not have any license or qualify under safety norms. These vehicles are not fit to ply on the roads and ferry children even under the present outdated Motor Vehicles Act, but the Transport Department continues to look the other way giving enough indications of corruption playing a big role in the whole game,” a senior Transport Department official remarked.

Officials said a number of meetings have been held during the last two years to finalise the norms for plying of such vehicles but things have remained inconclusive as both the political leadership and the administrative set-up have shown little interest in working out a solution.

“It is such an unfortunate situation that the Department has failed to finalise a policy despite passage of two years showing how concerned the Government was about the welfare of the school students. These vans ferrying children are fitted with CNG and LPG kits that have not passed the safety standards test. They are all retrofitted second hand kits and unsafe. Anything can happen and we could have another Wazirabad like incident where 30 children died after a school bus fell into the Yamuna in 1997,” Anil Sood of Chetna, a non-government organisation working in the transport sector remarked.

Equally to be blamed for this mess is the traffic police and the Education Department which are not coming down heavily on the schools for allowing children to be transported in such an unsafe manner.

Source:http://www.hindu.com/2006/11/30/stories/2006113011370400.htm

Entry Filed under: Delhi Road Accidents