The state government will tell owners of buses and minibuses at a meeting scheduled for Thursday that they will be held accountable for rash driving by drivers hired by them and booked for negligence, sources in the government said.

The meeting will be held in the backdrop of Tuesday’s accident involving two racing buses that left an 11-year-old boy dead.

The sources said the owners of buses and minibuses would be told that they would have to check the background of the drivers they have hired or are hiring and keep tabs on the condition of their vehicles.

Apart from transport department officials and private bus owners, the meeting
will be attended by police officers and representatives of the urban development
department.

“There has to be accountability at all levels. If drivers are responsible for rash driving, bus owners can’t deny their responsibility because they randomly choose people to drive their vehicles,” Chakraborty told Metro on Wednesday.

“The ‘Safe Drive, Save Life’ campaign has yielded results. But we need to do more. I have witnessed rash driving and speeding by bus drivers in Calcutta and suburbs. This has to stop. Drivers and bus owners will have to remain accountable equally,” he said.

Chakraborty and his cabinet colleague Firhad Hakim will preside over Thursday’s meeting, which will discuss ways to reduce road accidents and fatalities. The director general of police and the commissioner of Kolkata Police are scheduled to attend the meeting.

The meeting is likely to discuss the possibility of booking errant drivers under stricter charges.

Now, a bus driver is booked under the section of culpable homicide not amounting to murder if found responsible in a police investigation for a fatal accident.

“A driver may be booked for murder if rash driving results in a fatal accident. But several other factors contribute to a fatal accident, such as mechanical failure caused by lack of servicing, use of resoled tyres, driver’s inexperience and faulty road surface,” a Kolkata Police officer said.

“We hope to discuss each of these at the meeting and fix responsibility.”

Representatives of several bus and minibus unions said owners have been struggling to remain afloat with diminishing returns because of lack of enough passengers and steep traffic fines.

The two buses involved in Tuesday’s accident are owned by the same person, a resident of Howrah. The buses have multiple cases pending against them in various areas.