School bus safety policy panel last met 9 months ago

Headed by police chief Satyapal Singh and comprising officials from the transport and education departments, the School bus safety policy panel had its first and only meeting in April 2012. Bhavya Dore reports.

A 12-year-old boy died in a freak school bus accident in July 2012 and a four-year-old girl was allegedly molested by a school bus cleaner earlier this year, but the nodal body — a district-level committee — overseeing the school bus safety policy has met just once in the last nine months.

The committee, which is responsible for implementing the school bus safety policy that came into effect in 2011, is supposed to meet once every six months.

Headed by police chief Satyapal Singh and comprising officials from the transport and education departments, the committee had its first and only meeting in April 2012.

Singh, who took over the committee in August 2012, had last week said that there would be a meeting within the next month.

Indrani Malkani, a committee member who was also part of the government panel that drafted the safety policy, said it was necessary for them to take stock of the problems being faced in implementation.

“Once the district committee meets, I am certain that many concerns will be addressed and the implementation will be uniformly better.” (With inputs by Mohamed Thaver)