Steep hike in school transport fee a worry for parents

PUNE Ahead of most schools in the city reopening on Monday, June 6, for the next academic year, one of the major issues facing school administration and owners of school buses is the hike in fuel prices over the last few months

PUNE Ahead of most schools in the city reopening on Monday, June 6, for the next academic year, one of the major issues facing school administration and owners of school buses is the hike in fuel prices over the last few months. While a major issue facing both school administration and parents is the transportation of students. Owing to the pandemic, a majority of school buses have become non-functional and need costly repairs, which is why some schools are planning to convert them into electric buses (e-buses).

Ahead of schools reopening after vacations, buses seen at Abhinav school campus. (Ravindra Joshi/HT PHOTO)

Rajeev Jagtap, founder-president of Abhinav Education Society’s English medium school and junior college, said, “There are around 100 buses in our fleet and most of them are down as they haven’t been operational for the last two years. If we want to restart them, we have to spend a minimum of Rs40,000 per bus. We’d rather convert a few of our buses into e-buses as it will be a one-time cost but at least we can charge affordable fees from the students’ parents.”

The principal of a private school on condition of anonymity said, “There are around 30 school buses of our own, but they haven’t been operational for the last nearly two years. Some of them need major repairs as they were just standing in one place and not running for a long period. So obviously, school fees are going to be increased from this academic year looking at the hike in fuel prices. Else we are looking to convert our buses into CNG or electric buses so we can cut down transportation fees.”

In the last one year, fuel prices including petrol, diesel and even CNG have skyrocketed, directly impacting transportation services provided by the school administration or owners of private school buses, vans and auto-rickshaws. “We have somehow survived over the last two years of the pandemic so now that schools are reopening normally from this year, the transportation fees will be increased.” said Prashant Mane, owner of a private school buses’ agency.

Meanwhile, parents are worried about the transportation of their children. Sushant Malhani, a parent from the Undri area, said, “The school timings of my son are in the afternoon and as my wife and I are both working, we are completely dependent on school buses for his transportation. We have got a circular in which the school has hiked the bus fees for this year, and this is certainly going to impact our monthly budget.”