And while further action has been promised against erring rickshaw drivers, efforts are also being made to ensure that most schools in the city make arrangements for their own buses to transport students.

According to City Police Commissioner Kuldip Sharma, there were only two possible solutions to the problems. ``Firstly, the rickshaw drivers abide by all the prescribed rules and secondly an urgent need for setting up an efficient public transport system which would ensure the safety of schoolchildren,'' he said, while talking to reporters on Saturday evening.

``We (city police officials) have held at least half a dozen meetings with civic officials and other agencies concerned in developing an alternative transport system,'' Sharma said, adding that the police department were even willing to send officials of the traffic branch to hold separate meetings with school authorities, to explain to them the danger to students' life when rickshaw drivers carried more than the nine children in their vehicles.

Expressing their firm resolve to tackle the problem head on, the city police officials said that the parents too had to take a stand in the issue.

While a handful of schools in the city have their own school buses, most others do not provide these facilities, making it almost compulsory for parents to send their wards to schools in autorickshaws.

On being apprised that it was not economical for both parents and rickshaw drivers if the vehicle had to carry less than 10 children and run on unadulterated fuel, the commissioner said, ``I do not think that it would be uneconomical. In this case at least, it is sheer greed at the cost of the safety of the students.''

Also speaking at the occasion, Additional Commissioner of Police (Range II) H P Singh, who is also in charge of traffic, said that the points raised by auto unions were both wrong and unjustified. ``Section 119 of the Motor Vehicles Rules clearly states that a permit ought to be taken for transporting school children. And in addition, all children ought to be insured.''

He also claimed that the latest tirade against erring auto drivers was not sudden and appeals had been issued days before the school reopened a fortnight ago.

Though, it may be long before all schools introduce buses for children and even longer for the setting up of an efficient public transport system in the city, it is for the first time that the police have given serious attention to the auto menace. Children too will now not have to travel like cattle stuffed in vehicles; constantly under threat of an accident or falling off.