Parents now complain about schools not carrying out safety audit of school buses

gurugram: It was a tragic Monday afternoon for Gulshan Singh and his family after his four-year-old son Sidharth was crushed to death by a school van while he was getting off

One major factor has been highlighted following this incident is the non-presence of an attendant to guide the driver while he was getting off the van. Distressed and angered over the entire incident, Sidharth's father has mentioned this in the formal complaint lodged at the Kherki Dhaula police station.

For safe transportation of students in school buses, the Haryana government back in 2014 drafted Surakshit School Vahan Policy. Despite this, incidents of school students getting injured or even dying due to negligence of bus drivers have been rampant in Gurugram. Most of the school buses either do not comply with proper identification procedures, overload students and even cut costs by not recruiting attendants or by not installing CCTV cameras as has been mandated.

Several parents have begun to openly share their grievances on how several schools are cutting corners, and rather than investing in school buses, they are outsourcing this job to private buses thus jeopardising the safety of the students. There are also several parents who opt for private transportation in order to escape from the exorbitant fee charged by several private schools.

What is troubling the parents even more is the bureaucratic inactiveness in dealing with the challenge. Following Monday's tragedy, there have been complaints of how proper audit of implementation of Surakshit School Vahan Policy is not being carried out as there is confusion of distribution of responsibilities between the RTA or the DC's office.

"For a long time, we have requested the Gurugram district administration to resume school bus safety audits to ensure adherence of Surakshit School Vahan Policy but there have been no results so far. The RTA has passed on the baton to the DC's office. Now we are awaiting for the DC's office to reconfirm the committee for the same," said Navdeep Singh, a resident of Gurugram.