News on DNA 24th April 2014

Pune: Pushing to make the school transport cell compulsory for all 6,400 schools in the Pune district, the Pune Regional Transport Office (RTO) and the education have come up with a new plan of a website that will feature data of the school transport cell. The decision was taken in a meeting held at the Pune RTO office on Tuesday.
In the last couple of weeks, the city has witnessed incidents of molestation in school buses by bus attendants and drivers. To come up with a permanent solution, the Pune RTO, Pune traffic police and Pune education board joined hands for this initiative.
All the schools in Pune district have to update details of their school bus committee and details of the bus driver and attendants. A deadline of June 30 has been set for the schools to form the school bus committee.
Addressing the media, the deputy director of education for Pune region Suman Shinde said, “We will now make it compulsory for all schools in the district to form a school transport committee. This committee will ensure that each school vehicle ferrying girl children must have a female attendant, and that it adheres to safety norms.”
Shinde added that, “Out of 2,200 schools in Pune city and Pimpri-Chinchwad, a total of 1,134 schools have formed school transport committees, while others have been sent noticesto comply by the end of June. If they fail to do so, strict action will be taken against the principal of the school.”
Regional Transport Officer Jitendra Patil, assured strict enforcement drives on an immediate basis, to check safety in school vehicles.
Patil said, “In today’s meeting, our main focus was to tightly monitor school buses. Most importantly, we need to ensure that every school bus has a female attendant. That aside, from April 23 to April 26, we will be conducting workshops in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. We will be briefing them about the formation of school bus committee and its responsibilities.”

On the Web
– In this new website which will be made by the RTO and education department, all the schools will be given an ID and password, so that after formation of the school bus committee for the school necessary details will be filled in it.
– Currently there are 6,400 schools in Pune district out of which till now 1,134 schools have formed the school bus committee
– A school bus committee should be formed in all the schools which are using transport for its students. The committee should comprise of RTO officer, principal of the school, local traffic police department official and one representative of the school transport and parents.
– In the recent case in which a school girl was raped by the attendant of the bus, we have seized the bus and canceled the permit for 30 days.

Source:

http://www.dnaindia.com/pune/report-soon-a-website-for-school-transport-in-pune-1981132