I am always on tenterhooks till my child comes home from school,” says Debolina Riat, whose daughter Bianca Riat studies in Class IV at Calcutta’s South Point School. She has good reason to be nervous. Recently, nine-year-old Kaustuv Bhattacharya, who was in the same school as her daughter, died when the pool car he was travelling in crashed into a bus.

This latest incident has once again focussed attention on the hazards that pool cars that ferry children to their schools and back pose to the safety of these children. In Bhattacharya’s case, the driver was guilty of reckless driving and the car too was in a very poor state. Soon after the tragedy, a meeting was held between West Bengal transport minister Subhas Chakraborty and the Pool Car Owners’ Welfare Association in Calcutta to thrash out some mandatory safety regulations for pool cars.

In accordance with the guidelines laid down, every pool car is now required to obtain a permit as a passenger transport vehicle. They are also prohibited from carrying children in excess of their “normal” capacity.

Furthermore, state transport secretary Sumantra Choudhury has stated that officials from the public vehicles department (PVD) will begin a crackdown on errant pool cars to ensure proper enforcement of the guidelines. However, the PVD in its turn has said that pool cars are solely under the jurisdiction of the Regional Transport Authority, and that it will not interfere in the matter.

While different government agencies are busy passing the buck, the problems and dangers of pool cars continue. Abir Roy, secretary of the Pool Car Owners’ Welfare Association, points out that many owners not registered with the association employ inexperienced drivers to keep costs down. “The minimum age of an experienced driver is supposed to be 35. But to cut down on costs, such drivers are not recruited in many cases. The salary of a young driver is about Rs 2,000 a month, whereas experienced drivers demand as much as Rs 4,000,” says Roy.

Apart from rash driving, the other safety concern is overcrowding. To maximise revenues, pool car owners often take in too many children — far more than can fit comfortably or safely in a vehicle. “Stuffing the vehicle with too many children, using abusive language and general carelessness all add to the hazards of travelling in pool cars,” says Reeta Chatterjee, principal of Apeejay School. Sushanta Mondal, a pool car driver who ferries children to South Point School, reveals that he carries seven students in his Maruti van where ideally not more than five or six should be taken.

Again, despite the new guidelines, many pool car owners do not have permits and have not got themselves registered with the government. Jayanta Das, a pool car owner who operates his vehicles in south Calcutta, is quite casual about the fact that he has not bothered to get a permit. “We do not require any registration,” he says dismissively. Das has been in the car pool business for the past four years and does not envisage any trouble in running his business the way he always has.

Many pool cars are also poorly maintained and that adds to the risk of accidents. “The government has stipulated that only cars manufactured after 2000 will be given permits. But hundreds of old cars are still in operation and doing brisk business too,” points out Abir Roy. Moreover, standard safety measures are absent in most of these vehicles. As Rajat Majumdar, whose daughter travels to school by pool car, points out, “There are no seat belts and no airbags for safety in case of accidents.”

But despite all these hazards, parents often have no choice but to opt for this mode of transport for their children. “Many schools do not have their own buses and children are compelled to use pool cars,” says Rupa Mukhopadhyay, principal of Julien Day School in Calcutta.

So what can you do if you find that the pool car your child goes to school in is flouting safety norms? You can either complain to the state consumer affairs department or lodge a case in a consumer court under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. Prabir Basu, a consumer activist and lawyer in Calcutta, says that errant pool cars are guilty of “unfair trade practices and negligence and deficiency in service in the eyes of the law”.

Despite its recent initiatives, the government recognises that the problem of pool cars is nowhere near being solved. Deputy secretary of the state transport department Dilip Bakshi admits that most cars do not have permits. “They have not responded to our appeals even after permits were made mandatory,” he says. State transport secretary Sumantra Choudhury too says that though his department is doing its best to bring errant pool cars to book, “no magic remedy exists to get rid of the problem overnight”. “The drive to arrest unauthorised pool cars is on and we are cracking down on reckless drivers,” he says.

But parents also need to be proactive about getting pool car owners to conform to safety regulations. Naren Dey, West Bengal’s minister of consumer affairs, affirms, “We will take action in case of any complaint regarding negligence and deficiency in service by car pool owners.”