CURATED BY – GAURAV SINGHAL | CITYCHIEFNEWS

Saharanpur, A meeting of the District Road Safety Committee and District School Vehicle Transport Safety Committee was convened in the Collectorate Auditorium under the chairmanship of District Magistrate Saharanpur Manish Bansal. In the meeting, discussions were held regarding fitness of school vehicles, license and character verification of school drivers, ban on driving two-wheelers and four-wheelers by students below 18 years of age, formation of road safety club, operation of unauthorized buses in schools, not to contract vehicles operated by school operators, installation of signage as per requirement, as well as taking all necessary steps under the standards of road safety to reduce accidents on roads. DM Manish Bansal said that from time to time, along with road safety campaigns, campaigns and awareness programs are also being run against the operation of unauthorized school vehicles, yet it is seen that the operation of unauthorized school vehicles continues unabated. He said that such permit-holding school vehicles, whose registration, fitness, insurance validity period has expired and yet they are being operated. Campaigns should be conducted against such school vehicles and meetings should be held with vehicle owners, school managers and principals to create awareness about not operating school vehicles unauthorizedly and action should be taken by issuing notices under the provisions of road safety rules. DM Manish Bansal said that playing with the lives of children will not be tolerated. He directed the ARTO to ensure the operation of legal vehicles as per rules by August 05. While reviewing the points of road safety, District Magistrate Manish Bansal directed the NHAI officials to complete the prescribed works under the standards of road safety on national highways.

District Magistrate Manish Bansal directed that black spots in accident prone areas in the district should be identified and indicators should be installed and the work of removing black spots should be expedited. He said that legal action should be taken against those violating traffic rules. Instructions were given to install traffic related indicators outside the schools located on the highway and roadside. District Magistrate Manish Bansal also directed that all schools should form a school vehicle committee at their own level, for which the District Basic Education Officer and District School Inspector were nominated as nodal officers and were instructed to complete the above action within a week. The Chief Medical Officer was directed to organize a camp for the health check-up of drivers of the five schools with the highest number of vehicles. The District Magistrate directed to take action against minor students driving vehicles and appealed to the parents not to let their minor children drive vehicles. District Magistrate Manish Bansal directed to make people aware of traffic rules by running an awareness campaign to reduce the number of road accidents, deaths and injuries in the district. Instructions were given to make a traffic plan in the municipal corporation limits and identify unfit and unusable vehicles. Intensive action should be taken by running a campaign against those violating traffic rules on the highway. On this occasion, Senior Superintendent of Police Rohit Singh Sajwan, DFO Shweta Sain, Superintendent of Police Traffic Siddharth Verma, ARTO MP Singh, Executive Engineer PWD Dharmendra Singh, officers of Education, Electricity, Health, Municipal Corporation and Police were present.