Plans chalked out for Bus Day on May 31

KOCHI: A day after conducting an awareness programme for bus crew, a meeting was organised at the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Mattancherry on Tuesday to chalk out plans to organise Bus Day on May 31. All stakeholders including district administration, DTPC, Motor Vehicles Department, Private Bus Owners Association, KSRTC, and Corporation officials attended the  meet which discussed plans to popularise Bus Day.RTO Mohanadas Pillai presided over the function. Chamber president P Pratapachandran, Prakash James, vice-president and chief operating officer S Ramakrishnan, Town Planning Committee chairman K J Sohan, among others, were present.As part of encouraging the bus crew to become more people-friendly, an awareness class was held in Mattancherry on Monday.The event was organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry as a prelude to the Bus Day.About 40 people participated in the event in which Adarsh Kumar, Motor Vehicles Inspector and master trainer, and Vijayan, SI, Palluruthy Traffic, led the class. The classes  dealt in all aspects of road travel and safety.A power point presentation was made. The traffic system in developed countries was shown to the participants which included about 20 bus crew. The people there respected traffic rules and cooperated with the authorities. When the signal was red, no vehicle would move even if there was no traffic, Adarsh Kumar said.The presentation also showed that traffic violations were  maximum in India. The speakers called upon the bus crew to improve their public relations and be polite and friendly to the passengers. They appealed to the bus crew to be careful as they had to interact with large number of passengers every day. The programme is the first of the series of such awareness programmes. The participants said that the programme was very informative.  S Ramakrishnan said that there were requests to organise such programmes in Tripunithura and other places.Bharat Khona, former president, Indian Chamber of Commerce, also spoke.Corporation Health Committee chairman T K Ashraf, Education and Sports Committee chairman R Thyagarajan, councillors Shyamala Prabhu, INS Dronacharya Commanding Officer Sushant Dam and Private Bus Operators Association office-bearers were also present.