Two things have marked school reopening for decades now; monsoon and the row between private bus employees and students.
While the monsoon failed to turn up, private bus workers and students enjoying concessional travel locked horns this year, too, despite the vigil of the Motor Vehicle Department (MVD).
The incident at Cheranalloor in which two students, who were forced to stand on the footboard of the bus, were thrown off the bus when it took a sharp turn, proves to be a flash point. The MVD squad focussed their enforcement drive at Cheranalloor on Wednesday in the wake of the incident. But that’s unlikely to be a good enough deterrent since MVD officials can hardly keep an eye on hundreds of private buses operating in the city. “Students should call and complain about misbehaviour by bus workers in the MVD numbers displayed in private buses and school education vehicles. Not a single complaint will go unattended,” said K.M. Shaji, Ernakulam RTO.
The Student Travel Facilitation Committee set to meet on June 11 will look into the problems faced by students on a daily basis. The committee with the district collector as chairman and RTO as secretary usually meets a couple of times during an academic year.
Missing the bus
What’s the minimum requirement for operating a bus service? A bus, of course. But going by what the district Regional Transport Authority (RTA) has noticed, even that basic requirement is being turned upside down.
Applications for private bus permits are being submitted by those who don’t even have a bus. Or in some other cases, operators who already have permit in a non-lucrative route apply for fresh permits in lucrative ones. They then operate in the new route leaving passengers in the old route in the lurch.“When we deny them permits, they approach courts and secure favourable permits,” said collector M.G. Rajamanickam, who is also the chairman of RTA.
M.P. Praveen
