Nitin Gadkari approves standards for the construction of bus bodies

Nitin Gadkari, the Union Minister for Road, Transport, and Highways, announced on Friday that he has finalized criteria for bus body construction that will be uniformly applied to both OEMs and bus body builders.

The government minister said in a post on Twitter that this action will open the door for more advancements in India's bus quality, with a particular emphasis on guaranteeing passenger safety in emergency situations.

The quality of bus body building in Bharat must urgently be improved in light of the growing incidence of bus accidents. I've now given my approval to guidelines for building bus bodies, which OEMs and bus body manufacturers must follow universally. This action will open the door for more advancements in the standard of buses in India, with a particular emphasis on maintaining passenger safety in emergency situations, according to Gadkari.

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As per the latest NCRB report published in 2022,  about 3% of all accidents in India were due to buses. 28.9% (1,337 out of 4,622) and 11.9% (551 out of 4,622) of total
fatal road accidents due to buses were reported in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu respectively.

Conclusion

Recently, a spate of accidents involving buses have been reported along the newly opened Mumbai Nagpur Maha Samruddhi Express. The most prominent one among them happened in July wherein 25 passengers died and eight others were injured when the bus caught fire.