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The National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRiP) on Tuesday gave an report to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, after looking into the reasons for the deaths following the accidents.
A senior official told Business Standard, “NATRiP has noted in its report that there were two to three safety lapses in the designing and manufacturing of the buses, which resulted in casualties in the two accidents. The fuel tanks in both the buses were close to the body, which resulted in the vehicles catching fire due to possible friction on collision.”
Second, government sources said, NATRiP had said the material used in flooring and seats were not fire-retardant, because of which the passengers did not get additional time to exit the burning vehicles. NATRiP also said both the buses were completely burnt and it could not locate any hammers in the vehicles, which could have helped the passengers break windowpanes and exit during emergencies.
“In the case of the incident in Andhra Pradesh, the door was hydraulically controlled, leaving no exit route for the passengers. In the second instance, in Karnataka, a passenger sustained injuries while manually trying to break the glass because of which (exiting via the broken window) the number of casualties were minimised,” added the official. NATRiP, however, said road engineering could have played a role in the accidents, as the buses were plying at an average of 80 km per hour.
It has asked the manufacturer, Volvo Buses India, for further details to simulate the accidents, understand the cause and suggest measures to minimise casualties.
Volvo said the company was yet to see the report.
Seven people were killed and 40 injured when a Mumbai-bound Volvo bus from Bangalore caught fire on November 14, after hitting the road median. On October 30, a Volvo bus operated by Jabbar Travels rammed into a culvert on NH-44 while going to Hyderabad from Bangalore. The fuel tank of the vehicle caught fire, killing all 45 passengers on board.
The Indian Federation of Transport Research and Training has demanded implementation of the bus body code to bring quality and performance regulation on bus-makers to ensure that the material used in vehicles was fire-retardant and so that the bus-maker was held accountable for product failures. Government sources, however, clarified that Volvo cannot be said to have not conformed to the bus body code as it has been recently notified.
