Vehicles flouting capacity rules; cops turn blind eye

Autorickshaws in the city have been openly flouting carrying capacity rules. Every day, especially during the opening and closing of schools, one can find numerous over-loaded autos on the city roads. The traffic police have been ignoring the problem even though several incidents have taken place. The police do not seem to have learned a lesson from the February 8 incident in which Archana, a class III student of Government Model School, Sector 16, died after falling from a rashly driven auto on the dividing road of Sector 18/ 21.

Every auto and school bus is eligible to carry 1.5 times the seating capacity when its occupants are children. This year the police have penalised only 44 TSR (TRI scooter autos and Rickshaws) while three school buses have been penalised for exceeding the carrying capacity limit.

Meanwhile, many parents claim that they have no option but to send their children in auto-rickshaws. When Newsline asked Mohammad Akram, father of two children who were injured in today's accident, if he was aware of that his children were traveling in an overcrowded auto, he replied, "I am aware that a large number of children travel in a single auto. We have no other option as school buses are costly and hiring an auto, which has less occupants, hits our pocket."

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