By Nayak Paudel
Kathmandu, Feb. 22: It was in February 10, 2019 that Nepal Police launched a mobile application to keep track of the long-route buses and their drivers.
The move was strictly followed in the beginning but two years later it is now not abided by.
The application allows traffic police to keep records of long-route bus drivers in one place and access it through another in order to ensure whether the drivers have been changed or not.
“If a driver of a bus continues driving alone for hours in the long-route, the driver has high chances of getting tired and sleepy which leads to accidents.
The application was brought in operation to ensure whether the driver of a long-route bus has been changed or not,” said Superintendent of Police (SP) Shyam Krishna Adhikari, spokesperson at the Metropolitan Traffic Police Division.
According to Section 6 of Clause 104 of the Vehicle and Transport Management Act, 1993, public vehicles providing long-route services should have at least two drivers so that one does not drive for more than six hours or does not cover a distance of more 250km.
With the help of the application, the traffic police keep records of drivers in Nagdhunga, Kathmandu; Kohalpur, Banke; and Shambhunath, Saptari. A picture of the driver is captured in Shambhunath for the buses en-route to Kathmandu from the east, and in Kohalpur for the buses en-route to the Kathmandu Valley from the west.
The picture is then checked by traffic police at Nagdhunga to confirm that the driver was replaced by another. Similarly, for buses leaving the valley, the drivers’ pictures are captured at Nagdhunga and checked at either Sambhunath or Kohalpur, depending on the route.
According to the data of Nepal Police, among the 25,788 vehicles involved in road accidents in Fiscal Year 2019/20, a total of 2,607 were buses. Similarly, 2,633 buses were involved in accidents in Fiscal Year 2018/19.
Nevertheless, the data also shows that 74 per cent of the accidents in 2018/19 resulted due to the driver’s negligence.
The application had allowed traffic police to fine 109 buses in less than a month of its launching and continued assisting similarly until the COVID-19 pandemic. But since the government allowed long-route buses to resume operation six months after the lockdown and the pandemic, the rule has not been implemented effectively.
“I remember that the long-route bus I had boarded from Kathmandu to Morang was fined in Saptari for not changing its driver in March, 2019.
But some days ago, the bus which brought me to Kathmandu from Morang did not change the driver,” said Anish Shrestha, a 25-year-old local businessman from Urlabari Municipality who often travels to Kathmandu by long-route night buses.
While a year ago, the move of traffic police to fine the bus and change the driver had pleased Shrestha, the recent negligence shattered his trust towards the authorities.
“A driver must be replaced in a long journey because a single driver can’t drive such distance alone and neglecting it will only risk the lives of many passengers. The authorities must continue checking whether the driver is replaced or not to ensure safe journey of the public,” said Shrestha.
Meanwhile, the traffic police also accepted not continuing the scrutiny effectively after the government allowed public transport to resume services after a nationwide lockdown, but they assured of correcting their delay.
“The application is not being used effectively after the public transportation sector resumed service after the lockdown. We will coordinate with the traffic police in Saptari and Banke to implement the move strictly again,” said SP Adhikari.