“The overloading in the bus shows the negligence of not only the officials of J&K Transport Department but also of the traffic police officials who could have stopped the bus on spotting overloading in the very beginning and penalised the driver for allowing the overloading in the bus.”
The death of 22 passengers in an overloaded passenger bus at Akhnoor shows that overloading goes unchecked and unregulated in Jammu & Kashmir despite increased focus on regulation of overloading in passenger buses after death of 39 passengers in an overloaded bus in Doda-Kishtwar area of Jammu division in November last year. The Akhnoor incident also shows that authorities of J&K Traffic Police department have not been serious enough to curb the increasing menace of overloading in passenger buses with a heavy hand. The suspension of six J&K transport department officials after the death of 22 passengers in Akhnoor bus accident is though an attempt to show zero tolerance against overloading in passenger buses but the negligence of not only J&K Transport Department but also of traffic police officials is yet to attract the attention of the authorities of twin departments of transport and traffic police. Just punishing six officials for overloading in the Akhnoor passenger that resulted in the death of 22 passengers is not sufficient enough to stop occurrence and re-occurrence of such bus accident in future. The overloading in the bus shows the negligence of not only the officials of J&K Transport Department but also of the traffic police officials who could have stopped the bus on spotting overloading in the very beginning and penalised the driver for allowing the overloading in the bus. In fact overloading in passenger buses has become a routine practice even in the twin capital cities (Srinagar and Jammu) and major tows of both Kashmir Valley and Jammu division.
“The Akhnoor bus accident demands a review of traffic rules for stringent curbs on overloading, resurfacing and black topping of the dilapidated inter-district roads and blanket ban on operation of condemned buses on inter-district for the purposes of reducing the increasing intensity of occurrence and re-occurrence of bus accidents in Jammu & Kashmir.”
Once overloading was a punishable offence but for the last more than two decades the overloading is not disallowed the way it was disallowed in mid nineties for the safety of passengers across Jammu and Kashmir. As potholes on dilapidated inter-district roads increases the vulnerability of overloaded buses to tragic road accidents the zero tolerance against overloading of passenger buses necessitates an urgent and immediate attention of both the transport and as well as traffic police departments. Government has ordered a probe to look into the causes of the accidents but the technical causes of accident but enforcement and lapses shown in regulation of traffic rules also demand and deserve an equal attention of the probe panel constituted by the Government. Since the operation of condemned buses is also a major cause of bus accidents in both Kashmir Valley and Jammu division, the investigations into the technical lapses by the probe panel could lead to review of the operation of condemned passenger buses as well. The Akhnoor bus accident demands a review of traffic rules for stringent curbs on overloading, resurfacing and black topping of the dilapidated inter-district roads and blanket ban on operation of condemned buses on inter-district for the purposes of reducing the increasing intensity of occurrence and re-occurrence of bus accidents in Jammu & Kashmir.
