Parliamentary panel to seek report from Road Ministry on Volvo mishaps

New Delhi: A Parliamentary panel will seek a report from the Road Transport and Highways Ministry on the recent Volvo bus accidents in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka that killed over 50 persons.

"Are there something in Indian conditions that Volvo has not taken into account or is there something wrong in the manner in which our people are operating these buses? These have to be seriously considered. The committee will enquire into it," Sitram Yechury, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture, told reporters here.

"We will seek a report from the Road Transport and Highways Ministry and try to find out what went wrong as from what we understand these buses have been built to international standards of safety and technical requirements," he added.

In the first accident at Mahbubnagar in Andhra Pradesh, 45 passengers were charred to death on October 30 as a Volvo bus burst into flames after its fuel tank caught fire. The accident occurred when the diesel tank of the Hyderabad-bound bus from Bangalore hit against a culvert.

The entire bus was engulfed in flames in a matter of minutes. In the second incident on November 14, seven passengers were killed and 40 injured when a Mumbai-bound bus from Bangalore caught fire after hitting a road median at Haveri in Karnataka .

"We don't understand, whether it is a new technically advanced thing that the Volvo is producing or something is wrong. We will ask the Ministry for certain clarifications and make our recommendations," Yechury said.

He also questioned road designs and planning. "In one of our reports, we have very strongly criticised that the government is not adhering to technical aspects of road building. We hope the Ministry will give its action taken report during the current session."

It is not just building flat roads, but it involves scientific study, soil condition and alignment as a wrong alignment could lead to lethal accidents, Yechury said.
"These have to be seriously considered," he said, adding that "a large number of innocent lives are being lost, which is very very unfortunate".

Talking about collection of toll, he said: "It is nothing but double taxation and should be scrapped immediately."

The government has already imposed cess on diesel and petrol for road development and therefore there is no need for collecting charges from road users, he said. Unfortunately "India is the only country in the world where right to collect toll is in perpetuity", he added.

Talking about road safety and other issues in the wake of gruesome gangrape of a 23-year girl in December last year, Yechury said the issue of multiplicity of authorities in framing and implementing laws relating to transport needs to be addressed.

Yechury said a holistic policy needs to be put into place as criminals get away taking advantage of the duality and multiplicity of the system, which is peculiar in case of Delhi where control over the police is directly with the central government.