‘Vidya Vahan’ likely to be adopted by state

Kolkata: After Kerala, Bengal may become the second state to adopt Vidya Vahan, software used by parents to track pool cars and school buses. The software has been developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), which is the Government of India agency under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

The software was first launched in Kerala in 2023 enabling parents to track school buses. The Kerala government had provided the app free to parents.

In a meeting held by the West Bengal Transport department and C-DAC in May, a mention was made on encouraging school administrators and parents to use softwares like Vidya Vahan to track these vehicles on a real-time basis. According to a C-DAC official, the app is yet to be launched in Bengal but there are workshops scheduled for stakeholders regarding the software after June 5. The software has been developed by C-DAC and would reinforce road safety and security of school children availing these vehicles.

There are at least 3,000 to 3,500 legal pool car services running in districts, including Kolkata, Howrah, North and South 24-Parganas and a part of Hooghly- Dankuni. According to a pool car owner, the number of pool cars which have installed Vehicle Location Tracking Devices (VLTD) has increased by 20 per cent compared to last year. More than 1,28,000 Vehicle Location Tracking Devices (VLTD) have been installed in different classes of vehicles till now.

Prior to VLTD fitment, pool cars used to operate on GPS systems. Using an application provided by a private company, they would share the system with parents for a minimal amount. Using which, parents could keep track of their wards. However, the GPS system did not have panic buttons which was an important aspect in VLTD. The pool car owners, however, have raised concerns over malfunctioning VLTDs which are leading to false alerts, amongst other operational constraints.

In the meeting it was decided to take strict action against VLTD manufacturers whose devices are frequently malfunctioning. The decision was taken after it was reported that unnecessary alerts were being received by the police authorities from the Command and Control Centre which led to compromise in the speed and effectiveness of the system.