Action against CNG cylinders in school vans to start in two days

The Sindh government has decided to launch a province-wide decisive crackdown on an immediate basis against school and college buses fitted with compressed natural gas (CNG) cylinders.

The decision was made on Wednesday at a meeting chaired by Sindh Transport Minister Syed Awais Qadir Shah. Talking to media persons after the meeting, the transport minister said the campaign to remove the CNG cylinders from the school and college buses would commence in the next two days. He added that the traffic police would be assigned the responsibility to remove the CNG cylinders.

All the relevant agencies and departments of the provincial government would back the traffic police in the drive, Shah said, adding that the grand operation against the use of CNG cylinders in the buses transporting school and college students would be carried out in line with judicial orders to ensure safety of the students.

The transport minister expressed hope that all the relevant stakeholders in the education sector, including the parents and school owners, would lend support to the crackdown. The government would not make any compromise on the issue of safety of the school and college students, he said.

Shah informed the media that district monitoring committees, comprising officials of the Sindh excise, education and transport departments and traffic police, would be constituted to conduct surveys of privately run schools in order to ensure safety of students with regard to their transportation.

He added that all such district committees would be monitored by the transport secretary. From now onwards, if an accident related to the transportation of students took place in the province, the monitoring committee of the district concerned would be held responsible, the minister announced.

Shah said he had issued orders to the officials concerned to start communication with the provincial education and excise departments for the constitution of the district monitoring committees.

The transport minister also revealed that in the next stage of the drive, due penal action might be taken against the fuel stations, which were found supplying CNG to school and college vans. Responding to a query, Shah said the Sindh government was responsible for purchasing buses for the Green Line Bus Rapid Transit project in Karachi once its construction was completed by the federal government.

According to Shah, it might still take one full year for the Green Line project to be completed. He added that Prime Minister Imran Khan had offered to run buses for the Green Line project in Karachi; however, the federal government was yet to announce any follow-ups to the earlier offer of the PM.