Modern High School is fighting to keep five old buses on the road, following a government notification regarding their phase-out. (Anindya Shankar Ray) South Point is running an environment-friendly fleet of buses for its junior school students by following a proper phase-out plan for old buses (Sudeshna Banerjee).

A Lodha has come clean while a Birla is playing “dirty”.

This has nothing to do with the war of wills, but with the fight against foul fumes.

The GP Birla-run Modern High School for Girls is busy in its bid to beat the court-imposed ban on its old buses, even as the RS Lodha group’s prized inheritance, South Point School, is running an environment-friendly fleet.

All 13 of the South Point buses ferrying children to and from the school at Mandeville Gardens are now well below the 15-year-old bar.

Just over a kilometre away, five of the seven Modern High buses were slapped with a government phase-out notice, following which the Syed Amir Ali Avenue school moved high court and won a reprieve — provided they were converted to clean fuel.

Such a conversion, as Metro had reported on July 16, is not permitted under the Central Motor Vehicles Act and therefore the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), the central body approving transport vehicles, cannot give the green signal for the old buses of Modern High School to stay on road via the diesel-to-LPG route.

The court has made it clear that it is up to the school to obtain the necessary clearances in order to convert and retain its old fleet.

South Point has no such hassles on the horizon. “It’s just a matter of planned phase-out,” says the school’s administrative officer Subir Datta. The bus service is for the junior wing of the school with a record number of 6,960 students. About one-fourth of them avail themselves of the buses.

“Our oldest buses are the three that we bought in end-1996 to add to our strength of 10. The phase-out of the existing fleet started in 2003. The first year we bought three buses. The next year, we bought four. The remaining three were phased out, one bus each for three years from 2007,” explained Datta.

The bus that was replaced this year, registered in 1975, was “running well” with a new engine.

This was one of the points of the Modern High School plea in court — that five of its buses, more than 15 years old, be spared the July 31 axe, as they were “in good condition”.

In contrast, South Point was quick to decide on a step-by-step, rather than an SOS, exit policy for old buses. In 2003, the school was not aware of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the phase-out of buses older than 15 years from Delhi roads. “All we knew was that talks were on at the government level. In such a situation, sooner or later, restrictions are imposed. So we thought it was better to undertake the switch before being forced to do so overnight,” Datta said.

A bus of Tata Motors or Swaraj Mazda make costs about Rs 9 lakh now. “Imagine if we had to replace all 10 buses now at one go!” points out the school’s transport-in-charge Bhabesh Tiwari.

The planned phase-out has also meant that the students don’t suffer. “We buy a bus, do a trial run for some weeks and then make the switch. Only after the switch is done is the old vehicle sold off. There has never been a situation where we have squeezed 13 busloads of students into 12 buses,” stressed Datta.

At Modern High, if the brakes are slammed on five buses overnight, its transport service will be crippled. “My daughter studies in Modern High and my son in South Point. There is no problem with his school bus but I fear that her pick-up and drop will stop from next month if the old buses are scrapped at one go,” says an anxious mother of two in south Calcutta.

South Point School director Madhu Kohli believes schools have an added responsibility in keeping Calcutta clean and green. “We are teaching children to plant trees and save the environment in the value education classes. If we do not take the lead through our own actions, what example would we set for our students?” she told Metro.

Modern High School officials refused comment as the matter was in court.

Waiting to take her sons back home last week, Shabari Roy gave a thumbs up to South Point’s green line. “Both my younger son Srayan, a Class II student, and I have breathing problems because of pollution. I am glad his school is doing its bit to reduce the air pollution in Calcutta.”

Should school buses more than 15 years old be allowed to run? Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com