A 32-year-old school bus driver from Bengaluru was booked on Tuesday for alleged drunken driving. The Mico Layout police arrested the driver Jagdish, a resident of Kanakapura, around 7.45 am, when the police spotted him driving recklessly near Jayadeva junction.
As the police intercepted the school bus that belonged to Delhi Public School and was reportedly carrying 20 students at the time, they performed an alcometer check on Jagdish. It was found that his blood alcohol limit was above the permissible limit.
Following this, the police seized the vehicle and booked the driver under Section 279 IPC for rash and negligent driving, endangering public lives and Section 185 of the Indian Motor Vehicles Act, reported Deccan Herald.
The school's transport department head, Jayaram Naik told The Times of India that the school conducts regular checks on its 90 drivers.
“We have around 90 school buses and we regularly subject the drivers to alcohol test on the school premises. However, on Tuesday I don't think the test was carried out. We shall look into the matter,“ he said.
According to multiple reports, the police made alternative arrangements for the students to be sent to the school on time.
Despite the Bengaluru City Police Commissioner's order in September last year that schools must keep an alcometer and inspect bus drivers before they pick up students, little seems to have changed in the new academic year.
This is the second reported case in the city within a span of two days. Earlier on Monday, the Wilson Garden police arrested a 25-year-old driver on Siddhiah Road. Driver Ravi, was drunk driving had according to the police, did not posses a driving licence.
The commissioner had issued the order to all the 4000 schools in the city in September last year, after a number of bus drivers were booked for drunk driving.
Following the second case, Commissioner Praveen Sood took to Twitter to question the responsibility of the schools in such matters.
"Should traffic police only do it every time? Aren't we sitting on a bomb? Schools have no responsibility?" he tweeted.
Should traffic police only do it every time? Aren't we sitting on a bomb? Schools have no responsibility? https://t.co/BjccPNncMN
— Praveen Sood IPS (@CPBlr) June 6, 2017