MALAPPURAM: As the schools are bracing for a new academic year next month, the Motor Vehicle Department is busy scrutinising 2,800 school buses and its drivers to ensure the safety of students in Malappuram district. The MVD has embarked on a rigorous fitness check up of these vehicles along with giving special training for its drivers.
The MVD’s plan is to train around 3,000 school bus drivers in the district. However, at the end of this month, the focus has been on security and safety aspects. Each driver has to attend the one day session at the Institute of Drivers Training and Research in Edappal. Many have undergone the training and given certificates.
"The drivers without this certificate will not be allowed to drive the school buses. We have been giving this training for all the drivers of the registered 2,800 institutional vehicles in the district for the past three years. This first of its kind effort in the state has helped in a big way to bring down the accidents involving school buses in the district," says M.P Ajith Kumar, Regional Transport Officer, Malappuram.
“It is also mandatory to produce the driver’s training certificate to get the fitness certificate for the institutional vehicles. We don’t even accept the application for the fitness check up without it,” he said. Each year every institutional vehicle has to fetch the fitness certificate.
This mandatory training programme helps the authorities to screen the drivers and their experience. Five years of experience in the case of Heavy Driving licence holders and 10 years experience for LMV licence is mandatory to attend the training programme. “Because of this clause we can easily put away the inexperienced drivers from driving school vehicles. The school managements also support this initiative,” RTO said.
