Speed governors have been made mandatory in the state from tomorrow, informed state transport minister, Mr Suvendu Adhikari, at Assembly, today. The decision comes following a collision between a pool car and a two wheeler near Kolkata Station today.

The pool car carrying school children of a renowned English Medium School allegedly was running under the registration of a private vehicle. The driver of the pool car was later arrested and was found in a drunken condition. The minister also informed that speed laser guns have also been deployed to regulate the speed of vehicles.

In addition, the state Transport Department has called a meeting with the pool car operators on 19 February to discuss ways to curb illegal plying of such vehicles and thereby reduce untoward incidents, sources in Transport Department informed today. Last week, a pool car accident in Hooghly district left 15 school children injured, two of which are critically ill and receiving treatment at SSKM Hospital.

The two incidents have brought into the fore, unregulated plying of pool cars in the city and districts, a considerable number of which are registered under the category of private vehicles. State Urban Development Minister, Firhad Hakim yesterday said that pool car drivers would be given special training to reduce the number of accidents.

Similarly, state education minister, Partha Chatterjee urged the parents to submit specific details of the pool cars and the drivers to the schools of their wards. He also directed the secretary of the education department to issue an alert to schools to collect details of students travelling in pool cars and school buses.

The pool car operators, meanwhile, are demanding a single window system for completing the procedures of obtaining permits of new pool cars. “One of the main reasons for illegal plying of the pool cars under private vehicle registration is that the process of obtaining the permit for new vehicles is complicated,” claimed, Sudip Dutta, secretary of Pool Car Welfare Association, the mother organisation for registered pool cars in the city and fringe areas.

“We would therefore request the authorities to provide us with a single window system where the process gets simplified and the gap that enables the role of agents and brokers is omitted,” he added.