Madurai: 36 school vehicles found unsafe for transporting students

MADURAI: The transport department here has rejected fitness certificates for 36 vehicles belonging to educational institutions as various deficiencies were detected during an inspection held at the Armed Reserve police ground. In total, 375 vehicles were brought for the inspection on Tuesday.


With schools set to reopen in the first week of June after summer vacation, the vehicles were inspected by a team of officials from various departments including transport, revenue, police and fire and rescue.

Officials from the regional transport department said that deficiencies were found with respect to absence of first-aid kit, fire extinguishers, which have crossed expiry, weak deck and vehicle body, absence of speed controller and non-operational emergency exits.

A demo was conducted by the fire and rescue personnel to use fire extinguishers in case of emergencies.

Officials said that they look for 25 criteria during the check before declaring a vehicle safe for transportation of students . Except for the 36, fitness certificates were issued to the nremaining 339 vehicles. The certificate in the form of sticker was pasted on the vehicles, which passed the test. The remaining vehicles are to be checked in batches in the coming days, they said. Various higher officials including district collector S Nagarajan, district superintendent of police N Manivannan, deputy commissioner of police and Madurai city (traffic) Arun Balagopalan took part in the checking process.

RTOs P Suresh of Madurai South, K Selvakumar of Madurai North and R Ponnurangam of Madurai Central also took part along with motor vehicle inspectors and other officials.