Regional Transport Authority to conduct audit of private school buses

“RIP, these schools can’t feel the loss and pain Jiya faced. They just know how to take huge fees along with huge transport charge,” one Atul Sharma posted on Facebook.

Earlier this month, the Haryana Child Protection Commission along with officials from education, transport and child welfare department — all a part of the ‘Surakshit School Vahan Policy’ — had registered complaints with the district administration against Sri Ram School in DLF area for not following safety procedures in their school buses — made mandatory by the Haryana government to ensure safer transportation of school-going children in the state. 

This policy requires installation of CCTV cameras in the buses, keeping a check on the speed through speed governors, school’s contact numbers should be on both the front and back of the bus, presence of a lady attendant in buses and the driver of the vehicle should have at least five years’ driving experience and should not have been challaned.

This incident also threw light on how urgent was the check on all schools not only Sri Ram School. Keeping this in mind, starting Friday, the Regional Transport Authority (RTA), Gurgaon, has decided to conduct a special audit of all the private school buses plying on the Gurgaon roads.

The audit will be done by RTA officials along with support from the Road Safety Officers (RSO) and it aims at identifying violations with regard to the ‘Surakshit School Vahan Policy’. The district administration had issued fresh orders to the regional transport authority in September 2015 to ensure that all the school buses were inspected under the compliances of the policy. Now, the audit will check whether the buses have followed these norms and they will be fined or impounded on the basis of the same.

“We had shared communications with the private schools in the past and have given them sufficient time to comply with the court order on the ‘Surakshit School Vahan Policy’. They should now be ready to face serious action in case of any lapses identified as part of the proposed audit. To ensure independence, we will be taking assistance from the team of Road Safety Officers (RSO) to accompany our RTA officials during the audit” said Jitendra Kumar, Secretary, RTA, Gurgaon.