Days after a student died after his head hit an electricity pole as he was leaning out of the window of his school bus, the Delhi government, on Wednesday, directed schools to follow new safety norms while ferrying children from home and vice versa.
The new guidelines make its mandatory for the management to draw a route plan for school buses by August 15 and appoint an in charge, especially to monitor the school bus fleet.
“Every school should have a route plan for buses. By August 15, the management will have to submit the route plan, list of children travelling by school buses and the designated bus stops to the traffic police, transport department and directorate of education,” transport minister Arvinder Singh Lovely said.
Valid licence
“In addition to the bus attendant, the schools will have to compulsorily employ a conductor by September 30 who has a valid licence. Only those buses which follow the norms will be allowed to operate,” the minister added.
With this the school management should also ensure that three grills are installed with the windows of every school bus with a maximum gap of 20 cm.
“The speed limit for any commercial vehicle in the city is already determined as 40 km per hour. From now on, while show cause notices would be issued against the driver for the first violation of the speed limit, the driving licence of the driver would be cancelled if he is caught violating the speed limit for the second time,” Lovely said.
The decision was taken in a meeting chaired by the transport minister. Transport commissioner R Chandramohan, Joint Commissioner of Police (traffic) Satyendra Garg, S M Ali, additional commissioner of transport, additional director of education Sunita Kaushik and members of Delhi Contract Bus Association were present.