Kathmandu, March 17

Traffic police have launched a fresh crackdown on school buses carrying students beyond their seating capacity in the Kathmandu Valley.

As part of the crackdown, traffic police today detained a microbus belonging to Adarsha Vidhya Sadan in Gwarko, Lalitpur for carrying children almost double its capacity.

The 16-seater microbus was carrying 34 students with most of them standing.

SP Lokendra Malla, spokesperson at the Metropolitan Traffic Police Division, informed that on-duty traffic cops were directed to keep vigil on school cabs and buses and take action against vehicles carrying students beyond their capacity.

“We had not taken action against such vehicles until a few weeks back on grounds of fuel crisis. Now the situation has returned to normal and we launched a fresh crackdown,” he said.

The existing law allows traffic police to only slap a fine of Rs 500 each on such vehicles. Private schools charge all students equal transport fare on a monthly basis depending on the distance between the school and their home, but many schools do not make proper transport arrangements.

Meanwhile, 10 student unions, including Nepal Students Union, ANNFSU and ANNISU-R, today issued a press statement demanding that the government take action against the schools that operate old vehicles.