Saturday, 29 JUNE 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Transport department will start a fire safety audit of school buses and vans in Dehradun, Haridwar, Uttarkashi and Tehri districts after schools reopen in July. The department will organise various camps in these four districts where transport officers will provide them training in batches of about 100 to 200 vehicle operators in association with the Fire department, the regional transport officer (Enforcement) of Dehradun division Shailesh Tiwari said. The department had announced this plan in May after a school van carrying 18 students burst into flames moments after the driver had safely taken children out of the van. According to him, he took out the children after observing smoke coming out of the van’s engine and moments later, the whole van caught fire. If he had not acted promptly at that time, all 18 students could have died. Some similar incidents where the students carrying vehicles met with accidents were also observed in other districts. These incidents raised concern over the ignorance of the department about checking school buses, vans and other vehicles that carry students. Considering this, the department announced in May that it will conduct a fire safety audit of school vehicles in June to ensure operators know how to keep their respective vehicles. However, the department did not initiate this drive in June. Responding to this, Tiwari said that many drivers and operators of school buses and vans were not available in June due to summer vacations. Due to this, the department decided to start the drive in July. “We are planning to conduct a drive at a huge level for which we will need several traffic officers and personnel. The department will start making preparations for setting up camps for audit in Uttarkashi, Haridwar, Dehradun and Tehri districts from the first week of July. The drive will commence on July 15. This will be the first fire safety audit of school buses and vans which will be organised at such a grand level. We will also seek assistance from other departments as per the requirement,” he added.
