CM Yogi-led probe panel blames driver for Yamuna Expressway mishap

The three-member committee, constituted by chief minister Yogi Adityanath to probe the cause of Monday’s Yamuna Expressway bus accident, in which 29 people were killed and many others injured, has held the driver, who died in the accident, responsible for the tragedy.

“Holding the driver responsible will hardly serve any purpose since he also died in the accident,” a transport department official, who did not want to be named, said. Meanwhile, Yogi summoned transport minister Swatantra Dev Singh and senior officers at an emergency meeting on late Tuesday evening to discuss the issue of increasing number of road accidents.

Yogi is learnt to have expressed displeasure at the way the UPSRTC buses, especially the luxury ones, are meeting with accidents. He directed the authorities to pay special attention to training and fitness of drivers as well as roadworthiness of buses.

Singh, principal secretary Aradhana Shukla and UPSRCT MD Dheeraj Sahu did not take calls made for their comments.

The accident probe committee, comprising transport commissioner-cum-UPSRTC managing director, commissioner, Agra division and IG, Agra range, submitted its report to the CM on Monday night itself only, sources revealed.

“The committee has cited the possible drowsy driving by driver Krapashankar Chaudhary as the reason for the accident,” the sources said.

“However, there is no CCTV footage or any other eyewitness account to corroborate that the driver dozed off before the accident,” they said.

The sources said the most likely reason for the accident could be either over-speeding or the driver not being familiar with the route. Chaudhary used to travel on other routes where there are several stoppages and on Monday he was scheduled to take the bus to Ghazipur but was asked to take the AC bus to Delhi to clear the rush.

“May be he got confused with regard to direction on the expressway due to not being familiar and lost control over the vehicle,” the sources said, adding “accountability must be fixed of the official who asked the driver to take the bus to Delhi in the night on the long route the driver was not familiar with.”

They said there must also be a probe into why the bus’s GPS device, which remains connected with the centralized vehicle tracking system, was not working when the vehicle fell into the drain, making it impossible to know now as to at what speed the bus was running at the time of the accident.