School bus found overloaded, challaned

The flagship school bus service scheme of the state government has come under scanner as a bus plying for Government Senior Secondary School at Nehru Garden was found violating norms on three grounds.

The traffic police issued an on-the-spot challan against the bus just as it had moved out of the campus after the school got closed. Driver of the bus Rajwinder Singh was found not wearing a uniform which is mandatory for all school bus drivers. Further, the 52-seater bus was found to be ferrying 81 students and was thus clearly overloaded.

Even a bigger offence was that the number plate used by the bus was actually found to have been registered for a bike.

SI Sukhjinder Singh of Traffic Zone-4 said, “The driver said he was driving for the contractor for the past six months. He feigned ignorance on the number plate issue and uniform and said both aspects were taken care of by the bus owner. I have even called the owner but he could not give any convincing reply. So, we issued a challan."

The police issued a challan of Rs 3,700 but the bus was not impounded. The cops said since the kids were waiting to be dropped back home, we did not want them to get harassed in this hot and sultry weather. The bus scheme for government school students had started with much fanfare by Education Minister Harjot Bains in September last. He had then announced that 466 girls from the school had availed the bus service.

Jalandhar