Agra: City schools don’t seem to be serious about children’s safety. Perhaps that why over 100 vehicles being used to ferry children on a daily basis haven’t undergone fitness tests and pose a threat to the safety of children and staff members. Officials said that a majority of schools haven’t paid heed to multiple reminders from the regional transport office, which claims that it has issued as many as 1,200 notices in this regard so far.“Despite repeated reminders, around 115 buses and vans being used by schools to transport children do not have fitness certificates. On our part, we have been sending notices to schools and will issue fresh notices if the institutes do not follow the norms,” Anil Kumar Singh, regional transport officer (enforcement), told TOI.Singh added that even some reputed schools in the city feature in the list of defaulters. “According to the rules, commercial vehicles need to get a fitness certificate from the regional transport office once every year. In case of a new vehicle, the first fitness check has to be conducted within the first two years.”The regional transport officer said that they were now planning to start a fresh campaign to check vehicles ferrying schoolchildren both in rural and urban areas. “We will check whether these vehicles are equipped with first-aid kits, fire extinguishers, speed governors and reflectors. We are also planning to hold a meeting with representatives of schools, city administration and police to ensure that the safety of schoolchildren is not compromised. The regional transport office will also ask schools to provide a character certificate of drivers and conductors,” he said.Meanwhile, TS Sigh, Agra SP (traffic), told TOI, “We keep conducting drives on regular intervals to check these vehicles. We also hold traffic awareness camps in schools, where the authorities and children are made aware about the importance of fitness certificates for vehicles.”TOI contacted several city schools, but all of them maintained that their name was not on the list and that they were following traffic norms.

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