PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa transport department has set the July 31 deadline for private schools in the province to present their buses for inspection at the offices of the district motor vehicle examiners, insisting the move is meant to phase out outdated vehicles.

The decision about the ultimatum was made during a meeting chaired by provincial transport director Ahmed Kamal.

The meeting was called to discuss a proposal to scrap private school buses of old models, reveal its minutes, a copy of which is available with Dawn.

The meeting decided that the Private School Regulatory Authority would issue final notice of 21 days with the deadline of July 31, 2024, to privately-owned educational institutions across the province to produce their buses along with the relevant documents, including registration book and previous fitness certificates, if any, for inspection at the offices of motor vehicle examiners and vehicle emission testing solutions in the respective districts.

Asks educational institutions to present those vehicles for inspection

After inspection, fitness certificate and pollution control certificate will be issued to the vehicles found to be roadworthy and mechanically fit. If vehicles are found to be unfit, they will be declared condemned and will not be allowed to ply the roads, according to the minutes.

They also revealed that after the expiry of that deadline and on the non-production of school vehicles for checking, the directorate of transport along with the district administration and traffic police would carry out a crackdown on unfit vehicles of private educational institutions in line with the decision of the department.

Transport director Kamal Ahmed told Dawn that the decision to phase out rickety buses was meant to address the issue of poor air quality.

He said that the transport sector had 58 per cent share in carbon dioxide emissions, while the matter was also related to the safety of children using outdated school buses, so the department was banning such vehicles on a priority basis.

“These [unfit] buses are safety, emission and congestion hazards and therefore, the transport department wants to ban them from plying the road,” he said.

Official documents available with Dawn show that actually, the department had decided in December 2021 to ban the private school buses registered before Dec 300 or with the model year of 2000.

According to them, the grace period of one month was granted to private educational institutions to replace those buses to ensure the “safety of schoolchildren as well as the society at large.”

In Jan 2022, the transport department decided that private educational institutions would share the details of their vehicles and drivers with it for examination.

“After reviewing the documents, the department will decide whether to issue fitness certificates to the vehicles or condemn them,” a document said.

It, however, added that the private educational institutions failed to provide any document to the transport department by that deadline.

The department held another meeting on the matter the same month and decided that the private educational institutions would present their vehicles before motor vehicle examiners for inspection, but the former again didn’t do so.

On June 6, 2022, the issue came under discussion in another meeting, which decided that the final notice of 15 days would be issued to private schools and colleges to present their buses for inspection.

“The transport department along with traffic police and district administration will issue a schedule of visits, preferably on Sunday, and will inspect vehicles on educational institutions premises and all vehicles found unfit will be confiscated,” the document revealed.

It added that the transport department would approach the excise and taxation department for the cancellation of registration of the vehicles found to be unfit for use, under the Motor Vehicle Ordinance, 1965.

An official privy to the matter told Dawn that educational institutions didn’t present buses for inspection in 2022 and later after the arrival of the caretakers and due to the political uncertainty, the matter remained in the cold storage.

He said that around 1500 such vehicles were operated by educational institutions across the province.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2024