Coimbatore: Officials have begun to examine school buses to ensure security aspects, even as educational institutions preparing to reopen for class I students to VIII in November.
A team consisting of G S S Seseepan collector, Geetha District Education Officer and Regional Transportation Officers Sathiyakumar, Kumaravel, Balamurugan and Sivagurunathan examined 309 school buses in the PR land here on Thursday, when 33 buses were found to have small defects.
A transportation department official said there were 1,226 school buses in the district.
“They are operated by 230 private schools.
Today (Thursday), 309 vehicles are checked for security aspects.
Most of them are new buses and fitting structurally.
Small defects detected in 33 buses including the absence of a fire extinguisher and first aid box , among others.
The remaining school buses will be checked in a few days.
“He said the school bus was examined for footstep height, window size, emergency door, governor speed, partition for the driver, first aid box and fire safety equipment.
Referring to the bus with defects, the official said the school was asked to ratify the problem and take a vehicle to the regional transportation office to be approved.
“Otherwise, the bus cannot be used to transport students.” While schools have operated a bus to class IX ferry students to XII, the official said only 25% of 1,226 school buses were used for the same thing.
It should be noted that the school bus is checked for safety aspects every year.
However, it was not done in 2020, because the school was closed due to the pandemic situation.
The last inspection was carried out in May 2019.