Are our children safe? No, not when they are on Delhi roads

NEW DELHI, February 3: February 3: Sunil Srivastava, 10, knocked down by a DTC bus in Kondli, east Delhi, while riding pillion on a bicyc...

NEW DELHI, February 3:

February 3: Sunil Srivastava, 10, knocked down by a DTC bus in Kondli, east Delhi, while riding pillion on a bicycle.

February 2: Anu Pandey, 5, run over by a school bus in Kondli, when she was walking back home from school.

January 8: Amandeep, 12, slipped from the footboard of a DTC km scheme bus and died after the driver did not stop the vehicle near Guru Tegh Bahadur School in Karol Bagh.

November 19: Sunny, 4, was playing when he was crushed under a DTC bus in Sunder Nagri area of east Delhi.

November 17: School bus with 21 children overturns near Mayur Vihar. Several children injured.

November 7: Bharat Sharma, 6, fell out of the window of his school bus in Rani Bagh, north-west Delhi, and died under the wheels.

Since November 1998, almost a year after the Wazirabad school bus tragedy in which 30 children died, every month two to three children never reach their schools or never return home. Lately, more school children in east Delhi have been mowed down by speeding buses without speed-governors, window railings and driven by drivers without the mandatory 10-year experience. And almost all the accidents occur in the vicinity of the schools.

Says Yamuna Vihar resident Umesh Chand Sharma, who lost his seven-year-old son in the Wazirabad accident on November 18, 1997: “Nothing ever changes, the children of Delhi will never be safe. All of us, who lost our children that day, had taken a vow to force the government to do something to tame bus drivers. And see what the government has been doing.” For example, he says, the government is yet to come out with electronic speed-governors, which former transport minister Rajendra Gupta had said in November 1997 would be available within four months. Currently, metal rods fixed under accelerator pedals function as speed governors.

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Police investigations into the accidents which occurred yesterday and today have revealed that the buses were plying at more than 60 km per hour, when the stipulated limit is 40 kmph. Investigations also revealed that the metal rod (speed-governor) in the school bus, under which Anu Pandey died, had been filed away.

Soon after the Wazirabad tragedy on November 18, 1997, the Supreme Court had passed an order regarding buses and safety of school children. Besides making speed-governors mandatory and stipulating the speed limit, the Court had also laid down guidelines for schools and bus owners. Bus owners were asked not to employ drivers with less than 10-years experience. And school managements were told not to hire private buses and ensure that children do not leave their schools on their own.