RTO to probe operator’s failure to provide accommodation to students

The Kerala State Human Rights Commission has ordered the Transport Commissioner to direct the Regional Transport Officer (RTO) concerned to probe the incident in which accommodation was not arranged by a tour operator for 135 students of SNDP Higher Secondary School, Aluva, who were taken in three buses to Kodaikanal for a picnic.

The report by the RTO must be submitted to the Commission in three weeks. The RTO must also decide whether the lapse on the part of the tour operator attracted penalty in the form of cancellation of his permit/licence, the Commission said in a suo motu action taken in the wake of newspaper reports. With accommodation not being arranged, the students had to spend much of the night in the bus and were later taken to Ooty.