Amid criticism from all sections of society for lack of action against public schools responsible for traffic congestion on various city roads, Dehradun SP Traffic Pradeep Kumar Rai along with SP City Ajay Singh and City Magistrate GC Gunwant reached the St Joseph's Academy school after school hours and got the gate of the school campus opened for parents of students to park their vehicles within the academy campus on Wednesday.

City Magistrate Gunwant said that earlier the school principal was served notice under section 133 of IPC and directed to provide parking to the students’ parents in the school campus. An FIR will be lodged against the school principal under section 188 of IPC if the school fails to implement this order, he added.

The SP Traffic said that though State Director General of Police BS Sidhu had ordered school authorities to open their campus for parking of school bus, three-wheelers, school vans and vehicles of parents, the school authorities have not implemented his order. Finally, police had to enforce the order. A drive to enforce this order will continue outside the St Joseph's Academy in coming days, he added.   

Meanwhile, students’ parents who reach the school ten or twenty minutes before the school closing hour to pick up their children parked their vehicles on the Subhash Road outside the school which led to inconvenience to the road users. Initially, police faced verbal arguments with parents but somehow managed to implement this order successfully.   

PHQ officials, Secretariat officers and employees, road users on Subhash Road and Rajpur Road (outside St Joseph's Academy) who were facing inconvenience due to vehicles of parents parked on the road outside the school had earlier opined that police seemed to adopt selective approach when it comes to imposing rules on public schools.

In place of imposing challan for traffic violations, district police deploys inspector, sub-inspectors and seven or eight policemen to resolve traffic congestion outside St Joseph's Academy daily. It now remains to be seen whether effective action is also taken in the case of other public schools causing public inconvenience.