Government to take action on overcrowding buses and autorickshaws in Chennai
Posted on: 03/Apr/2019 9:35:14 AM
Chennai is big city with huge population is a well known fact. Hence it is a common sight to see the buses in Chennai with lots of people and same is the case with autorickshaws too. This overcrowding is a violation and it could lead to huge issues like accidents and finally causing deaths etc is well known.
The latest news is Madras High Court has directed the government of TN to file a detailed report on the cases registered for such violations of Motor Vehicles Act. On Tuesday, 2nd April 2019, an interim order was passed by Justice Mr. S. Manikumar and Justice Mr. Subramanium Prasad. This was based on the PIL or Public Interest Litigation moved by Erode based Mr. Chellappan.
The point is information was received through RTI reply from the additional transport commissioner. According to this information it is clear that the maximum number of passengers permitted in a mini bus is 25 and in the regular mofussil buses is 55. In case of share autos, only 5 persons could be permitted to travel apart from the auto driver.
Mr. Chellappan later expressed his thoughts and spoke about how the drivers of the vehicles were allowing double the permitted levels in their vehicles and this despite having knowledge about the statutory restrictions. He added share autos carried as many as 10 persons also sometimes and such type of violations were highly dangerous as the driver of the vehicle was at risk of navigating his vehicle in the heavy traffic. Finally Mr. Chelappan shed light on how overcrowding in the vehicles could lead to many accidents and were highly dangerous for the pedestrians as well as 2-wheelers.
It is important to note that restriction on the number of passengers in a vehicle was based on the engine plus other capacity of the vehicles. He pointed out that violation of such limit would result in much more damages to the vehicles and thereby the maintenance cost would be more.
It was explained by Mr. Chellappan that the reason for travelling in the foot board in the buses was due to overcrowding. The space inside the bus gets reduced due to overcrowding and this would lead to the people standing on the foot board. He finally spoke about how in the minibuses the passengers were allowed to stand in the strap hanger area that is only for the passengers to get down and board the bus comfortably.
