The laminated photocopies of driving licences of bus staffers should also be displayed prominently. In a bid to address the issue of road accidents due to reckless driving, the West Bengal Transport Department has issued guidelines for bus operators and asked them to display "antecedents and credentials" of drivers and conductors, including police complaints against them, inside vehicles and verify their driving track records before engaging them, an official said on Sunday. The standard operating procedures (SOPs) issued by Transport Secretary Soumitra Mohan said a feedback mechanism, including a complaint register, should be kept ready in buses.
These registers must be regularly reviewed and disposed and corrective measures must be taken, it said.
In view of several road accidents and fatalities due to "reckless driving, mechanical failure, lack of proper skill and awareness", it is felt imperative to frame and issue a detailed guideline to the transport operators and the crew operating public transport vehicles for checking such incidents in future", said the notice, issued on December 6.
Among the SOPs, the operators were asked to display the "antecedents and credentials of drivers and conductors, including police complaints, and driving track record should be duly verified before engaging them for operating a transport vehicle".
The laminated photocopies of driving licences of bus staffers should also be displayed prominently.
"Any adverse (improper or negative) track record of the crew member, including a driver or a conductor should be kept in mind before appointing or allowing them to operate the vehicle," the notice said.
The move comes in the wake of reports that the buses and drivers involved in road accidents had hundreds of cases related to traffic violations and rash driving and fines against them, and most of these were not acted on and the fines not realised, a transport official said.
In the past, there had been cases of pilferage of fuel from parked buses on city roads in which drivers were found to be involved and were arrested by police.
The arrests showed operators have "no say in appointing drivers" in different routes, and the arrested drivers had criminal cases against them in the past, the official said.
The SOPs also advocated regular refresher courses, spanning 7-15 days, to make drivers and conductors aware of safety rules and good behaviour.
The transport department specifically asked the operators to scrap the existing commission system as this arrangment is seen one of the reasons behind road accidents and rash driving.
The driver or conductor of a bus reaching the terminus before the earlier one on the same route gets a commission and the bus running late is fined.
"The route and timetable of each stage carriage should be displayed in the vehicle and must be strictly followed," the notice stipulated as among the guidelines.
No bus shall pick up or drop passengers beyond 30 metres of designated bus stops/terminus/depots, it said.
A senior transport official said private bus operators and state transport undertakings have been asked to comply with the guidelines which are essential for bringing order into the chaotic city transport system.
Joint Council of Bus Syndicate President Tapan Bandyopadhyay said the association has itself issued a set of guidelines for drivers and conductors, which includes safe driving.
"About the rest of the guidelines, we will sit with the transport department to raise our points and efficacy factor. Some other SOPs can be implemented. We all want chaos to end on city roads. But only buses should not be blamed," he said.
Transport Minister Snehasis Chakraborty had said the guidelines would be issued by his department in the wake of the death of a child in a recent road accident.
The student, riding pillion on the scooter of her mother, died after being knocked down by a bus which was racing against another passenger vehicle on the same route.
