Nagpur: The transport commissioner’s office has put forth traffic management plan for the state to avoid traffic congestion due to plying of school buses.
On March 17, deputy transport commissioner Govind Sendane asked all regional transport officers and deputy regional transport officers to ensure every school has a designated place for pickups and drops by school buses and vans.
On Monday, regional transport officer (RTO) Sharad Jichkar asked all school managements, principals and headmasters to provide school bus halts or parking space on over 12-metre wide roads that connect residential localities. “They should submit the proposal for parking lots to the regional transport offices before April 9, 2018,” said Jichkar in a press release.
The transport commissioner’s directives were issued following an order by the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court to fix stops for school buses. The HC order was given following a petition over haphazard parking outside schools and no demarcated place to halt school buses and vans in the city. ,
In Nagpur, buses and vans ferrying schoolchildren ply from residential localities. Even big buses travel from residential areas causing traffic jams. Even CBSE had issued guidelines to all its affiliated schools to ensure that the school buses halt only at
bus stops designated for the purpose.
Now, the transport department has sent new guidelines to all the government and private schools that have their own transport facility or provide the service through private operators.
A school bus transporter said that a similar rule in the past allowed school buses only on over 12-metre wide roads to reduce traffic congestion in residential areas. “However, after the parents opposed the rule, schools restarted pickup and drop on internal lanes.”
