Three students died in a vehicle that should have been scrapped in a junkyard, not ferrying schoolchildren on Monday afternoon. Yet the state transport department’s immediate response was a familiar one: to convene a meeting with pool car operators, a step that has produced little change in the past.
Transport minister Snehasis Chakraborty said on Tuesday that the objective of the meeting is to reiterate child-safety norms and remind operators of penal provisions for flouting them.
But history suggests these gatherings rarely lead to enforcement. Vehicles like the one that plunged into a pond in Howrah’s Uluberia, carrying five children, have continued to ply without checks.
Governments have alternated between shifting the burden of safety to parents or to schools, while failing to build effective monitoring systems of their own. The result: three children, aged between 7 and 11 and students of Mother Marina Mission School, died on Monday. Two others managed to escape.
Chakraborty told Metro: “The transport department has drawn up specific guidelines for pool car and school bus operators. Some operators, including the one in Uluberia, are flouting them. We will soon meet pool car operators to underline the regulations in place and remind them of the penal provisions for violations.”
Senior transport department officials said regional transport officers have been instructed to intensify checks on private vehicles operating as pool cars in violation of rules. Only commercial vehicles with valid permits “for carriage of schoolchildren” qualify as pool cars, they stressed, and any others must be booked under existing laws.
The Maruti Omni that sank in the pond had no business being on the road. Registered on November 10, 2003, as a private vehicle, it was 22 years old and its registration had lapsed, according to preliminary police findings.
“The man who drove the vehicle on Monday, Simanta Bag, had recently purchased the car for ₹15,000 because he wanted a second vehicle to meet rising demand for ferrying children,” a senior officer of Howrah rural district police said. “The ownership was never transferred. Bag also underwent heart surgery a few months ago and had only recently resumed driving.”
Bag, who was arrested, was remanded in judicial custody for 14 days on Tuesday.
Six children were in the car on Monday; one was dropped off moments before the crash. Eyewitnesses told the police that the vehicle suddenly veered off the road and plunged into the pond, submerging completely within moments.
Two of the children who did not survive — Areen Dey, 6, and Souvik Das, 11 — were cremated on Monday night. The last rites of Ishika Mandal, 7, await her father’s return from Dubai. He works in a jewellery workshop there and will reach Calcutta on Wednesday morning.
The Uluberia school remained closed on Tuesday. Guardians said they had been told they would be informed later about reopening plans. A section of parents alleged that the school had arranged the pool car — a charge the authorities denied.
“The school arranged for this pool car,” said guardian Mandira Mondal. “We initially wanted an e-rickshaw because it would be cheaper, but the school insisted on the pool car. The driver had a heart attack during Durga Puja. Some of us told him not to drive, but he said he had to because he had two children to look after.”
School authorities countered the allegation. “The school has no role in choosing pool cars for the children. Parents decide the vehicle and pay the drivers,” said Sheikh Saha Alam, the school owner, in a video message to guardians on Tuesday.
Last June, the transport department stated in a directive that school buses and pool cars must have seat belts, fire extinguishers and first-aid boxes. Schools were asked to collect periodic feedback from children and parents who had used buses and pool cars.
The directive also said all pool cars must be fitted with tracking devices, and the speed limit was fixed at 40km per hour. Most of these measures have remained on paper.