LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Monday gave one-month time to all schools for fresh registration in compliance with the policy of bus facility for students whereas the Punjab government asked all private school chains to purchase buses within 30 days.

Hearing multiple public interest petitions on environmental issues, Justice Shahid Karim directed the provincial secretary of school education to suspend the registration of any school that fails to comply with the school bus policy.

Secretary Khalid Nazir presented a report on proposed rules for private schools, stating that the government has implemented a policy requiring schools to have buses for registration.Justice Karim highlighted the seriousness of the school bus issue, noting that school owners have ample resources to implement this policy.

The judge instructed all orders must be enforced before the next smog season.

Justice Karim also directed the Punjab government’s lawyer to inform Aitchison School about the bus policy, stressing the urgency of addressing environmental concerns without further delays.

Owners say they don’t have resources, ask govt to take pick, drop responsibility

The judge also instructed the director general of the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) to review the city’s roads and submit a traffic plan.

The judge remarked that the government is taking commendable steps to combat smog.

However, he expressed dissatisfaction over the lack of enforcement of traffic rules.

During last week’s hearing, Justice Karim had made the registration of schools conditional on the implementation of the school bus policy.

He had ordered the government to halt the registration of new schools, saying every school must adopt the policy of bus provision to its students.

Meanwhile, the school education secretary held a meeting with owners of the school chains for the implementation of court orders.

He also ordered District Education Authority (DAE) chief executive officer (Lahore) to ensure the private school chains purchase buses.

The secretary said that the government is starting the registration of all the schools and only those schools will be registered which have transport.

He said that no school would get registration without implementing court orders and desired environment-friendly buses.

All Pakistan Private Schools Federation President Kashif Mirza said that it was the constitutional responsibility of the state to provide transport to schools. He said that 95pc of the private schools did not have resources to buy buses.

He said the court should review the orders since they cannot implement it.

He said the court should rather listen to all stakeholders before taking any action against them. He said the private schools cannot be made responsible to ensure pick and drop. He said that the state should take responsibility to provide environment-friendly transportation.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2024