Team Herald
PANJIM: Private school bus/van operators have demanded an amicable solution to the issue of overloading of vehicles carrying school children. Parents and operators on Monday voiced their grievances, after Transport officers started issuing challans to overloaded vehicles.
“We are not saying that we are doing legal business, but the government should come with some solution. Right now we have stopped our operations and it is parents who are suffering,” said an operator.
Parents who had gathered in Panjim near Hedgewar High School expressed their unhappiness over the fines and spoke of the difficulties they face as the transporters have stopped services since the drive by the Transport department.
Shweta Narvekar, a government employee, said she faces major hardships in dropping and picking her children to and from school as the operators have stopped the service. “During office hours I cannot move out to pick up my children from school and it becomes very difficult for me,” she said.
Parents said that the operators pick up the children from their home and drop them back to the doorstep, which other school buses do not do. This doorstep service, parents said, allows them to work free of tension as they know that their children are being taken straight home by the vehicle operators.
The service is offered by private operators and over the years the trend has grown as the trust between operators and parents of the children has also strengthened.
Herald had reported extensively on the operation of these overloaded vehicles and the risks involved. The court had then taken up the matter. The Transport authorities are now issuing fines to operators who are overloading their buses or vans with school children.
One of the operators said that Transport department should issue special permits to resolve this issue. “If a van which seats five will carry only five children, how will we sustain ourselves? The cost will also increase and the parent will feel the hit,” a school bus operator said.
